A report of 20 unrecorded bacterial species isolated from island and coastal ecosystems in 2023

Various samples from island and coastal ecosystems in South Korea were investigated to discover unrecorded bacterial species. Soils from these areas, along with seawater samples, were plated on marine agar and R2A agar (containing 3% sea salt). From these samples, approximately 1,070 bacterial strains were isolated as single colonies and identified using 16S rRNA gene sequences. A total of 20 strains, which exhibited at least 98.7% similarity in their 16S rRNA gene sequences to those of validly published bacterial species not yet reported in Korea, were identified as unrecorded bacterial species. These strains belonged to three phyla, six classes, 10 orders, 14 families, and 16 genera. These were assigned as follows: Thioclava, Breoghania, Acidovorax, Erythrobacter, Paracoccus, Jiella, Aurantimonas, and Qipengyuania within the class Alphaproteobacteria; Pseudomonas, Cobetia, and Rheinheimera within the class Gammaproteobacteria; Aequorivita, Leeuwenhoekiella, and Polaribacter within the class Flavobacteriia; Algoriphagus within the class Cytophagia; and Microbacterium within the class Actinobacteria. The unreported species underwent further taxonomic characterization, which included assessments of Gram reaction, colony and cell morphology, biochemical and phylogenetic characteristics.