Bacillus cihuensis sp. nov., isolated from rhizosphere soil of a plant in the Cihu area of Taiwan

A Gram-positive, moderately halotolerant, rod-shaped, spore forming bacterium, designated strain FJAT-14515^T was isolated from a soil sample in Cihu area, Taoyuan County, Taiwan. The strain grew at 10–35 °C (optimum at 30 °C), pH 5.7–9.0 (optimum at pH 7.0) and at salinities of 0–5 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum at 1 % w/v). The diagnostic diamino acid of the peptidoglycan of the isolated strain was meso-diaminopimelic acid and major respiratory isoprenoid quinone was MK-7. Major cellular fatty acids were anteiso-C_15:0 (40.6 %), iso-C_15:0 (20.7 %) and the DNA G+C content of strain FJAT-14515^T was 37.1 mol %. A phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain FJAT-14515^T belongs to the genus Bacillus, and was most closely related to the reference strains of Bacillus muralis DSM 16288^T (97.6 %) and Bacillus simplex DSM 1321^T (97.5 %). Levels of DNA–DNA relatedness between strain FJAT-14515^T and the reference strains of B. muralis DSM 16288^T and B. simplex DSM 1321^T were 27.9 % ± 3.32 and 44.1 % ± 0.57, respectively. Therefore, on the basis of phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and genotypic properties, strain FJAT-14515^T represents a novel species of the genus Bacillus, for which the name Bacillus cihuensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is FJAT-14515^T (=DSM 25969^T = CGMCC 1.12697^T).