Salinimicrobium aquimaris sp. nov., a novel Flavobacteriaceae member isolated from seawater in the tidal region of Danzhou, Hainan Island

A yellow, Gram-stain-negative, facultatively anaerobic and rod-shaped strain, designated as HB62^T, was isolated from seawater in the tidal region of Danzhou, Hainan Island, People's Republic of China. Growth of strain HB62^T occurs at 16-40 °C, 0.5-10.0% (w/v) and pH 6.0-9.5 with the optima of 37 °C, 1.5-2.0% (w/v) and pH 6.5-7.0. Strain HB62^T could grow anaerobically by using nitrate and sulphate as electron acceptors. The 16S rRNA gene sequence identity analysis showed that strain HB62^T shared the highest sequence identity of 98.0% with <i>Salinimicrobium soli</i> CAU 1287^T and those of ≤97.9% and ≤94.6% with the rest of <i>Salinimicrobium</i> type strains and other genera type strains, respectively. Phylogenetic trees based on 16S rRNA genes and single-copy orthologous clusters revealed that strain HB62^T was stably clustered into the genus <i>Salinimicrobium</i>. Average nucleotide identity and digital DNA-DNA hybridization values of strain HB62^T and <i>Salinimicrobium</i> type strains were 72.1-78.2% and 17.8-21.2%, respectively, which were lower than the species delineation thresholds. The sole respiratory quinone was identified as menaquinone-6. Major fatty acids (>10%) are iso-C_15:0, iso-C_16:0 and summed feature 9 (iso-C_17:1 <i> </i>ω<i>9c</i> and/or C_16:0 10-methyl). Polar lipids included phosphatidylethanolamine, two unidentified glycolipids, three unidentified lipids and two unidentified aminolipids. Based on the genetic, chemotaxonomic and phenotypic results, strain HB62^T is concluded to represent a novel <i>Salinimicrobium</i> species, for which the name <i>Salinimicrobium aquimaris</i> sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is HB62^T (=KCTC 102226^T=MCCC 1K08856^T).