Genomic evidence that Shouchella miscanthi (Shin et al. 2020) Joshi et al. 2022 is a later heterotypic synonym of Shouchella hunanensis (Patel and Gupta 2020) Joshi et al. 2022

Shouchella hunanensis DSM 23008 T and Shouchella miscanthi AK13 T were originally described from forest soil and the rhizosphere of Miscanthus sacchariflorus , respectively. The two strains share closely similar phenotypic properties, and their 16S rRNA gene sequences show 99.5% similarity. Phylogenetic analysis of all 16S rRNA gene copies revealed copy-dependent placements, whereas the phylogenomic analysis placed the two type strains and three additional genomes in a strongly supported, short-branched cluster. Eight 16S rRNA gene copies were identified in each genome, with detectable intragenomic heterogeneity, particularly in AK13ᵀ. Pairwise average nt identity among the two type-strain genomes and three additional publicly available genomes ranged from 99.0% to 99.3%, clearly above the accepted species boundary. The digital DNA–DNA hybridization value between strains S. hunanensis DSM 23008 T and S. miscanthi AK13 T was 92.5%. On the basis of the combined phylogenetic, genomic and phenotypic evidence, S. miscanthi (Shin et al. 2020) Joshi et al. 2022 is proposed as a later heterotypic synonym of S. hunanensis (Patel and Gupta 2020) Joshi et al. 2022.