A dialysis cultivation system was used to enrich slow-growing moderately thermophilic anaerobic bacteria at high cell densities. Bicarbonate buffered mineral salts medium with 5 mM glutamate as the sole carbon and energy source was used and the incubation temperature was 55 degrees C. The reactor inoculum originated from anaerobic methanogenic granular sludge bed reactors. The microbial population was monitored over a period of 2 years using the most probable number (MPN) technique. In the reactor glutamate was readily degraded to ammonium, methane, and carbon dioxide. Cell numbers of glutamate-degrading organisms increased 400-fold over the first year. In medium supplemented with bromoethane sulfonic acid (BES, an inhibitor of methanogenesis), tenfold lower cell numbers were counted, indicating the syntrophic nature of glutamate degradation. After 2 years of reactor operation the predominant organisms were isolated and characterized. Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum (strain R43) and a Methanosaeta thermophila strain (strain A) were the predominant hydrogenotrophic and acetoclastic methanogens, respectively. The numbers in which the organisms were present in the reactor after 24 months of incubation were 8.6 x 10(9) and 3.8 x 10(7) mL(-1) sludge, respectively. The most predominant glutamate-degrading organism (8.6 x 10(7) mL(-1) sludge), strain Z, was identified as a new species, Caloramator coolhaasii. It converted glutamate to hydrogen, acetate, some propionate, ammonium, and carbon dioxide. Growth of this syntrophic organism on glutamate was strongly enhanced by the presence of methanogens.