A non-motile, orange-coloured and rod-shaped bacterial strain, designated strain ZOW29T, was isolated from a seaweed sample collected from the South Sea, Republic of Korea. Cells were Gram-stain-negative, aerobic and non-motile. The isolate required sea salts for growth. Carotenoid pigment was produced. A phylogenetic tree based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain ZOW29T forms an evolutionary lineage within the radiation enclosing the members of the genus Dokdonia with Dokdonia diaphoros MSKK-32T, Dokdonia eikasta PMA-26Tand Dokdonia donghaensis DSW-1T (97.1 % sequence similarity each) as its nearest neighbours. The DNA-DNA relatedness values between strain ZOW29T and these four type strains were 35-48 %. The major fatty acids were iso-C15:0, iso-C17 : 0 3-OH and iso-C15 : 1 G. Strain ZOW29T contained MK-6 and phosphatidylethanolamine, an unidentified aminolipid and an unidentified polar lipid as the only isoprenoid quinone and the major polar lipids, respectively. The DNA G+C content of strain ZOW29T was 38 mol%. On the basis of polyphasic characterization, it is suggested that the isolate represents a novel species of the genus Dokdonia, for which the name Dokdonia aurantiaca sp. nov. (type strain, ZOW29T=KCTC 52956T=JCM 32295T) is proposed.
Keywords: Dokdonia aurantiaca sp. nov.; orange colored; seaweed.