LAUSR

Two aerobic and obligately acidophilic bacteria, designated HZ411T and 4MSH08T, were isolated from the forest soil of Dinghushan Biosphere Reserve, Guangdong Province, PR China (23° 10' N, 112° 31' E). These two strains were Gram-stain-negative short rods that multiplied by binary division. HZ411T was motile, with a single polar flagellum, but 4MSH08T was non-motile. The results of the 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis indicated that these two strains formed a common clade with members of the genusEdaphobacterin subdivision 1 of the phylum Acidobacteria but they each occupied a unique position in the genus. HZ411T and 4MSH08T had a 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity of 96.2 % between each other and the highest sequence similarity of 97.7 and 96.9 % to Edaphobacter modestusJbg-1T and Edaphobacter aggregansWbg-1T, respectively. The DNA-DNA hybridization rate between HZ411T and E. modestusJbg-1T was 22.7 %. The DNA G+C contents of HZ411T and 4MSH08T were 57.7 and 59.3 %, respectively. HZ411T and 4MSH08T had similar major (>10 %) fatty acids with very high percentages of iso-C15 : 0 and C16 : 1ω7c, and similar major polar lipid profiles (both contained a phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidyldimethylethanolamine and glycolipid and several unidentified aminolipids and polar lipids). On the basis of these physiological, phylogenetic and chemotaxonomic data, we suggest that HZ411T and 4MSH08T represent two novel species of the genus Edaphobacter, for which the names Edaphobacter flagellatus HZ411T (=GDMCC 1.1193=LMG 30085) and Edaphobacter bradus 4MSH08T (=GDMCC 1.1317=KCTC 62475) are proposed.