Bacillus novalis sp. nov., Bacillus vireti sp. nov., Bacillus soli sp. nov., Bacillus bataviensis sp. nov. and Bacillus drentensis sp. nov., from the Drentse A grasslands

1 Ghent University, Department BFM (WE10V), Laboratory of Microbiology, K.-L. Ledeganckstraat 35, B-9000 Gent, Belgium 2 School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University, Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow G4 0BA, UK 3 GBF (German Research Centre for Biotechnology), Division of Microbiology, Mascheroder Weg 1, D-38124 Braunschweig, Germany Correspondence Jeroen Heyrman Jeroen.Heyrman{at}ugent.be A group of 42 isolates were isolated from the soil of several disused hay fields, in the Drentse A agricultural research area (The Netherlands), that were taken out of production at different times. The group represents hitherto-uncultured Bacillus lineages that have previously been found, by a non-cultural method, to be predominant in soil. The strains were subjected to a polyphasic taxonomic study, including (GTG) 5 -PCR, 16S rDNA sequence analysis, DNA–DNA hybridizations, DNA base-ratio determination, fatty acid analysis and morphological and biochemical characterization. By comparing the groupings obtained by (GTG) 5 -PCR and 16S rDNA sequence analysis, six clusters of similar strains could be recognized. A DNA–DNA relatedness study showed that these clusters represented five novel genospecies. Further analysis supported the proposal of five novel species in the genus Bacillus , namely Bacillus novalis sp. nov. (type strain IDA3307 T =R-15439 T =LMG 21837 T =DSM 15603 T ), Bacillus vireti sp. nov. (type strain IDA3632 T =R-15447 T =LMG 21834 T =DSM 15602 T ), Bacillus soli sp. nov. (type strain IDA0086 T =R-16300 T =LMG 21838 T =DSM 15604 T ), Bacillus bataviensis sp. nov. (type strain IDA1115 T =R-16315 T =LMG 21833 T =DSM 15601 T ) and Bacillus drentensis sp. nov. (type strain IDA1967 T =R-16337 T =LMG 21831 T =DSM 15600 T ). Abbreviations: rep-PCR, repetitive sequence-based PCR; S G , Gower similarity coefficient Published online ahead of print on 13 June 2003 as DOI 10.1099/ijs.0.02723-0. The EMBL accession numbers for the 16S rRNA gene sequences of Bacillus novalis LMG 21837 T , Bacillus vireti LMG 21834 T , Bacillus soli LMG 21838 T , Bacillus bataviensis LMG 21833 T and Bacillus drentensis LMG 21831 T are respectively AJ542512 , AJ542509 , AJ542513 , AJ542508 and AJ542506 .