A Gram-stain-negative, strictly aerobic bacterial strain, designated R29T, was isolated from orchard soil in Hwasun, South Korea. Cells were non-motile rods with catalase and oxidase activities. Growth was observed at 15-40 °C (optimum, 30 °C) and pH 7.0-9.0. Ubiquinone-8 was identified as the predominant isoprenoid quinone. Major polar lipids consisted of phosphatidylethanolamine, six phospholipids, an unidentified aminolipid and two unidentified polar lipids. Strain R29T contained iso-C15 : 0, iso-C16 : 0 and summed feature 9 (comprising iso-C17 : 1 ω9c/10-methyl-C16 : 0) as major cellular fatty acids. The G+C content of the genomic DNA calculated from the whole-genome sequence was 69.8 mol%. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that R29T was most closely related to Arenimonas daejeonensis T7-07T and Arenimonas malthae CC-JY-1T with sequence similarities of 98.0 and 96.9 %, respectively The average nucleotide identity and in silico DNA-DNA hybridization values between R29T and the type strains of A. daejeonensis and A. malthae were 87.0 % and 31.6 % and 83.4 % and 26.1 %, respectively. On the basis of the phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and molecular features, strain R29T represents a novel species of the genus Arenimonas, for which the name Arenimonas terrae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is R29T (=KACC 19896T=JCM 33216T).
Keywords: Arenimonas terrae; Gammaproteobacteria; new taxa; soil; taxonomy.