Systematic and Applied Microbiology 37 (2014) 157–164 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Systematic and Applied Microbiology j ourna l h omepage: www.elsevier.de/syapm Rhodopirellula lusitana sp. nov. and Rhodopirellula rubra sp. nov., isolated from the surface of macroalgae , Joana Bondoso a,b,∗ , Luciana Albuquerque c , Alexandre Lobo-da-Cunha b,d , Milton S. da Costa e , Jens Harder f , Olga Maria Lage a,b a Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto, Rua do Campo Alegre s/n ◦ , 4169-007 Porto, Portugal b CIMAR/CIIMAR, Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigac ¸ ão Marinha e Ambiental, Universidade do Porto, Rua dos Bragas, 289, 4050-123 Porto, Portugal c Centro de Neurociências e Biologia Celular, Universidade de Coimbra, 3004-517 Coimbra, Portugal d Laboratório de Biologia Celular, Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar, ICBAS, Universidade do Porto, Rua de Jorge Viterbo Ferreira, 228, 4050-313 Porto, Portugal e Departamento de Ciências da Vida, Apartado 3046, Universidade de Coimbra, 3001-401 Coimbra, Portugal f Department of Microbiology, Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Celsiusstr. 1, 28359 Bremen, Germany a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 12 May 2013 Received in revised form 13 November 2013 Accepted 19 November 2013 Keywords: New taxa Planctomycetes Rhodopirellula Macroalgae Biofilm a b s t r a c t Twenty two strains of Rhodopirellula were isolated from the epiphytic community of several marine macroalgae and separated into two groups, designated as group B and group C. In this study, we charac- terized these groups as two novel species belonging to the genus Rhodopirellula. These strains were represented by pleomorphic cells that were arranged in rosettes and formed pink- or red-pigmented colonies. The organisms were chemoorganotrophic and required vitamin B12 for growth. Their optimal temperature for growth was around 25 ◦ C. Major fatty acids were C 18:1 9c, C 16:0 and C 16:1 7c/C 16:1 6c. Phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylglycerol were the major polar lipids. Unidentified phospholipids were also present. The 16S rDNA sequence analysis confirmed the affiliation of these organisms to the order Planctomycetales, genus Rhodopirellula, with R. baltica as the closest phyloge- netic relative. The analysis of a partial sequence of the gene encoding the -subunit of RNA polymerase (rpoB) confirmed the phylogenetic separation of the isolates into two different species of the genus Rhodopirellula. The 16S rRNA sequences from strains of group B revealed their widespread occurrence across the world, whereas strains of group C were not observed before. On the basis of physiological, biochemical, chemotaxonomic and genetic characteristics we pro- pose that our isolates represent two new species of Rhodopirellula, Rhodopirellula rubra sp. nov. (type strain is LF2 T = DSM 25,459 = CECT 8075) and Rhodopirellula lusitana sp. nov. (type strain is UC17 T = DSM 25,457 = LMG 27,777). © 2014 Published by Elsevier GmbH. Scope of the paper: taxonomic paper Rhodopirellula is a widespread marine genus of Planctomycetes as revealed by molecular techniques as well as isolation and culti-  The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers for the 16S rRNA gene sequences of strains LF2 T , FC3, FC19, Gr18, MsF5, UC9, Sm2, Sm4, FC25, FC26, UC13, UC16, UC17 T , UC20, UC22, UC28, UC31, UC33, UC36, CcC6, CcC8 and UF6 are respectively, HQ845500, HQ845436, HQ845451, HQ845486, HQ845495, HQ845509, HQ845501, HQ845503, EF589353, HQ845455, HQ845513, EF589350, EF589351, HQ845516, HQ845518, HQ845522, HQ845523, HQ845524, HQ845525, EF589352, HQ845424 and HQ845536.  The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers for the partial rpoB gene sequences of strains LF2 T and UC17 T are, respectively, KC810969 and KC810968. ∗ Corresponding author at: Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Ciências, Uni- versidade do Porto, Rua do Campo Alegre s/n ◦ 4169-007 Porto, Portugal. Tel.: +351 220402724; fax: +351 220402799. E-mail address: joana.bondoso@fc.up.pt (J. Bondoso). vation studies. This genus was only proposed in 2004 emerging from the genus Pirellula [25]. Successful isolation of strains of Rhodopirellula has been achieved from samples from brackish and marine waters, sediments, macroalgae biofilms and invertebrates [9,10,14,15,21,24,30] but so far only R. baltica [25] and more recently, R. rosea [23] were described. R. baltica remains one of the best studied planctomycetes and was the first planctomycete with a complete genome sequenced [11]. Further characterization of new species within this genus will elucidate the ecologi- cal role of these organisms in the marine environment. A large genetic diversity of strains, not yet studied, has been encoun- tered in this genus, as revealed previously by Winkelmann et al. [31] and Lage and Bondoso [14]. In this study we character- ize two novel species of the genus Rhodopirellula. The strains were isolated from the epiphytic community of macroalgae from the north coast of Portugal and represent groups B (type species is LF2 T = DSM 25459 = CECT 8075) and C (type species is 0723-2020/$ – see front matter © 2014 Published by Elsevier GmbH. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.syapm.2013.11.004