A halophilic, Gram-staining-positive, non-motile, endospore forming rod-shaped bacterial strain, S1LM8(T), was isolated from a sediment sample collected from an inland solar saltern located in La Malahá, Granada (Spain). Growth was observed in media containing 7.5-30% total salts (optimum 15% total salts), at pH 7-10 (optimum pH 8) and at 15-50 °C (optimum 35-38 °C). The predominant isoprenoid quinone was MK-7. It contained A1γ-type peptidoglycan with meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid. The major cellular fatty acids were anteiso-C(15 : 0), iso-C(15 : 0), anteiso-C(17 : 0) and iso-C(16 : 0). The G+C content of its genomic DNA was 38.2 mol%. The affiliation of strain S1LM8(T) with the species of the genus Alkalibacillus was determined by 16S rRNA gene sequence comparison. The most closely related species were Alkalibacillus halophilus YIM 012(T) with 99.8% similarity, Alkalibacillus salilacus BH163(T) with 99.8% similarity and Alkalibacillus flavidus ISL-17(T) with 98.1% similarity between their 16S rRNA gene sequences. However, DNA-DNA relatedness between the novel isolate and the related species of the genus Alkalibacillus was less than 34%. Based on the phylogenetic, phenotypic and chemotaxonomic features, a novel species, Alkalibacillus almallahensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is S1LM8(T) ( = CECT 8373(T) = DSM 27545(T)).
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