Paenibacillus auburnensis sp. nov. and Paenibacillus pseudetheri sp. nov., isolated from the rhizosphere of Zea mays

Two Gram-stain-positive, aerobic, endospore-forming bacterial strains, isolated from the rhizosphere of were studied for their detailed taxonomic allocation. Based on 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity comparisons, both strains JJ-7 and JJ-60 were shown to be members of the genus . Strain JJ-7 was most closely related to the type strains of (99.6 %) and (98.7 %), and strain JJ-60 to (99.5 %). The 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities to all other species were ≤98.4 %. Both strains JJ-7 and JJ-60 showed 97.6 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity between each other. Genomic comparisons showed that the average nucleotide identity and digital DNA-DNA hybridization values to next related type strain genomes were always