Ancylobacter terrae sp. nov. and Ensifer soli sp. nov., two novel bacterial species isolated from paddy soil

Two novel aerobic, rod-shaped, non-motile and white-coloured bacterial strains, designated as sgz301288^T and sgz301302^T, were isolated from paddy soil in Fujian Province. 16S rRNA gene phylogenetic analysis revealed that strain sgz301288^T exhibited 97.2% similarity with <i>Ancylobacter moscoviensis</i> KCTC 62336^T, while strain sgz301302^T had the highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to <i>Ciceribacter azotifigens</i> KACC 19080^T (97.4%) and <i>Ensifer terangae</i> LMG 7834^T (97.0%). Average nucleotide identity (ANI) and digital DNA-DNA hybridization (dDDH) values between sgz301288^T and <i>A. moscoviensis</i> KCTC 62336^T were 79.5% and 22.9%, respectively. For strain sgz301302^T, ANI and dDDH values were 76.7% and 21.5% with <i>E. terangae</i> LMG 7834^T and 75.9% and 20.8% with <i>C. azotifigens</i> KACC 19080^T. Phylogenomic analysis further supported strain sgz301288^T belonging to <i>Ancylobacter</i>, whereas sgz301302^T clustered within <i>Ensifer</i>, distinct from <i>Ciceribacter</i>. The DNA G+C contents of sgz301288^T and sgz301302^T were 68.4% and 66.5 %, respectively. Strain sgz301288^T grew at 20-30 °C (optimum 30 °C) and pH 6.5-9.5 (optimum 7.0) and tolerated up to 0-1.0% NaCl, while strain sgz301302^T grew at 20-37 °C (optimum 30 °C), pH 5.0-9.5 (optimum 7.0) and 0-1.5 % NaCl. Both strains contained ubiquinone-10 as the predominant respiratory quinone. The main fatty acids were iso-C_{17 : 0} 3-OH and summed feature 8 (C_{18 : 1} <i> ω</i>7<i>c</i> and/or C_{18 : 1} <i> ω</i>6<i>c</i>) for sgz301288^T and C_{16 : 0} and summed feature 8 for sgz301302^T. Based on the polyphasic evidence, the proposed names of the two novel species are <i>Ancylobacter terrae</i> sp. nov. (type strain sgz301288^T=MCCC 1K09301^T=KCTC 8858^T) and <i>Ensifer soli</i> sp. nov. (type strain sgz301302^T=MCCC 1K09182^T=KCTC 8857^T), respectively.