A slightly curved, rod-shaped marine bacterium, designated strain CL-S1(T), was isolated from near Dokdo, an island in the East Sea, Korea. Cells were Gram-negative and grew well under either aerobic or microaerobic conditions. Analyses of the 16S rRNA and gyrA gene sequences of strain CL-S1(T) revealed an affiliation with the genus Arcobacter within the class Epsilonproteobacteria. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA and gyrA gene sequences showed that strain CL-S1(T) formed a robust clade with Arcobacter halophilus LA31B(T), with sequence similarities of 96.1 and 88.2 %, respectively. DNA-DNA relatedness between strain CL-S1(T) and A. halophilus DSM 18005(T) was 44 %, indicating that they represent genomically distinct species. Strain CL-S1(T) grew optimally at 30-37 degrees C, at pH 7 and in the presence of 3-5 % NaCl. The dominant cellular fatty acids were iso-C(15 : 0) 2-OH and/or C(16 : 1)omega7c (28.4 %), C(16 : 0) (26.2 %) and C(18 : 1)omega7c (22.3 %). The DNA G+C content of strain CL-S1(T) was 28 mol%. Strain CL-S1(T) differed phenotypically from A. halophilus LA31B(T) based on its ability to grow aerobically at 10 degrees C and inability to grow under anaerobic conditions. Based on the data presented, strain CL-S1(T) is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Arcobacter, for which the name Arcobacter marinus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is CL-S1(T) (=KCCM 90072(T) =JCM 15502(T)).