Alkalibacillus almallahensis sp. nov., a halophilic bacterium isolated from an inland solar saltern

A halophilic, Gram-staining-positive, non-motile, endospore forming rod-shaped bacterial strain, S1LM8^T, was isolated from a sediment sample collected from an inland solar saltern located in La Malahá, Granada (Spain). Growth was observed in media containing 7.5–30 % total salts (optimum 15 % total salts), at pH 7–10 (optimum pH 8) and at 15–50 °C (optimum 35–38 °C). The predominant isoprenoid quinone was MK-7. It contained A1γ-type peptidoglycan with meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid. The major cellular fatty acids were anteiso-C_15 : 0, iso-C_15 : 0, anteiso-C_17 : 0 and iso-C_16 : 0. The G+C content of its genomic DNA was 38.2 mol%. The affiliation of strain S1LM8^T with the species of the genus Alkalibacillus was determined by 16S rRNA gene sequence comparison. The most closely related species were Alkalibacillus halophilus YIM 012^T with 99.8 % similarity, Alkalibacillus salilacus BH163^T with 99.8 % similarity and Alkalibacillus flavidus ISL-17^T with 98.1 % similarity between their 16S rRNA gene sequences. However, DNA–DNA relatedness between the novel isolate and the related species of the genus Alkalibacillus was less than 34 %. Based on the phylogenetic, phenotypic and chemotaxonomic features, a novel species, Alkalibacillus almallahensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is S1LM8^T ( = CECT 8373^T = DSM 27545^T).