Coralslurrinella hongkonensis gen. nov., sp. nov., a novel bacterium in the family Psychromonadaceae, isolated from the coral Platygyra carnosus

Microbial diversity in tropical marine sediments assessed using culture-dependent and culture-independent techniques

The microbial communities associated with marine sediments are critical for ecosystem function yet remain poorly characterized. While culture-independent (CI) techniques capture the broadest perspective on community composition, culture-dependent (CD) methods can select for low abundance taxa that are missed using CI approaches. This study aimed to assess microbial diversity in tropical marine sediments at five shallow-water sites in Belize using both CD and CI techniques. The CD methods captured approximately 3% of the >800 genera detected across all sites using the CI approach. Additionally, 39 genera were only detected in culture, revealing rare taxa that were missed with the CI approach. Significantly different communities were detected across sites, with rare taxa playing an important role in distinguishing among communities. This study provides important baseline data describing shallow-water sediment microbial communities, evidence that standard cultivation techniques may be more effective than previously recognized, and the first steps towards identifying new taxa that are amenable to agar plate cultivation.

Corallincola luteus sp. nov., a marine bacterium isolated from surface sediment of Bohai Sea of China

A novel Gram-stain negative, strictly aerobic, rod-shaped motile bacterium with a single flagellum, designated strain DASS28^T, was isolated from surface sediment of Bohai Sea in China. Growth occurred in the presence of 1.0-4.0% NaCl (w/v, optimum 2.0%), at 10-37 °C (optimum 20 °C) on the Marine agar 2216E and pH 6.0-10.0 (optimum pH 8.0). The major fatty acids (> 10% of total fatty acids) were summed feature 3 (C_16:1ω7c and/or iso-C_15:0 2-OH), C_16:0 and C_18:1ω7c. The polar lipids were phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, an unidentified phospholipid, an unidentified aminolipid and two unidentified polar lipids. The major respiratory quinone was ubiquinone-8 (Q-8). The genomic DNA G + C content calculated from the genome sequence of strain DASS28^T was 48.8 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequence indicated that strain DASS28^T belongs to the genus Corallincola and shows high 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity of 96.7% to Corallincola platygyrae JLT 2006^T (= JCM18796^T = CGMCC 1.10992^T). On the basis of the polyphasic evidence, strain DASS28^T is considered to represent a novel species in the genus Corallincola, for which the name Corallincola luteus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is DASS28^T (= KCTC 52376^T = MCCC 1K03208^T).