Description of Maribacter forsetii sp. nov., a marine Flavobacteriaceae isolated from North Sea water, and emended description of the genus Maribacter

1 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, Unité Mixte de Recherche 7139 ‘Végétaux Marins et Biomolécules’, Station Biologique, F-29682 Roscoff Cedex (Bretagne), France 2 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; Université de Bretagne Occidentale, IFREMER, Unité Mixte de Recherche 6197 ‘Laboratoire de Microbiologie des Environnements Extrêmes’, IFREMER, F-29280 Plouzané (Bretagne), France 3 Max-Planck-Institut für Marine Mikrobiologie, D-28359 Bremen, Germany Correspondence Tristan Barbeyron barboun{at}sb-roscoff.fr Three rod-shaped, Gram-negative, chemo-organotrophic, heterotrophic, strictly aerobic, gliding bacterial strains, KT02ds18-4, KT02ds18-5 and KT02ds18-6 T , were isolated from North Sea surface waters near the island of Helgoland, Germany. Their taxonomic position was investigated by a polyphasic approach. The three strains were light yellow, oxidase- and catalase-positive, and grew optimally at 25 °C, at pH 7.5, and in the presence of 2.5 % (w/v) NaCl. The Chargaff's coefficient was 34.2–34.4 mol%. The three strains shared >90 % DNA–DNA relatedness and an identical 16S rRNA gene sequence. Comparative 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis allocated the three strains to the genus Maribacter in the family Flavobacteriaceae , with similarities of 97.0–97.4 % to five of the recognized Maribacter species. Their low level of DNA–DNA relatedness (