Vibrio superstes sp. nov., isolated from the gut of Australian abalones Haliotis laevigata and Haliotis rubra

1 Laboratory of Microbiology, Graduate School of Fisheries Sciences, Hokkaido University, 3-1-1 Minato-cho, Hakodate 041, Japan 2 Laboratory of Microbiology, University of Ghent, Ledeganckstraat 35, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium 3 CSIRO – Livestock Industries, Australian Animal Health Laboratory, 5 Portarlington Road, Private Mail Bag 24, Geelong, Victoria 3220, Australia 4 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, Laboratoire Jean Maetz, Villefranche-sur-Mer F06230, France Correspondence Tomoo Sawabe sawabe{at}fish.hokudai.ac.jp Five alginolytic, facultatively anaerobic, non-motile bacteria were isolated from the gut of abalones Haliotis laevigata and Haliotis rubra . Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rDNA data indicated that these strains are related closely to Vibrio halioticoli (98 % 16S rDNA sequence similarity). DNA–DNA hybridization and fluorescent amplified fragment length polymorphism fingerprinting demonstrated that the five strains constituted a single species that was different from all currently known vibrios. The name Vibrio superstes sp. nov. (type strain, LMG 21323 T =IAM 15009 T =G3-29 T ; DNA G+C content, 48·0–48·9 mol%) is proposed to encompass this novel taxon. Several phenotypic features were disclosed that discriminate V. superstes from other Vibrio species: V. superstes sp. nov. and V. halioticoli can be differentiated on the basis of 17 traits (indole production, -galactosidase test and assimilation of 15 carbon compounds). Abbreviations: FAFLP, fluorescent amplified fragment length polymorphism; ML, maximum-likelihood; MP, maximum-parsimony; NJ, neighbour-joining The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers for the 16S rDNA sequences of Vibrio superstes are AF519806 (LMG 21319=B1-5), AY155582 (LMG 21320=B2-3), AY155583 (LMG 21321=G3-11), AY155584 (LMG 21322=G3-15) and AY155585 (LMG 21323 T =G3-29 T ). Figures showing a full phylogenetic tree and a transmission electron micrograph of Vibrio superstes LMG 21323 T are available as supplementary material in IJSEM Online.