International Journal of Systematic Bacteriology (1 999), 49, 1053-1 073 Printed in Great Britain Phylogeny and polyphasic taxonomy of Caulobacter species. Proposal of Maricaulis gen. nov. with Maricaulis maris (Poindexter) comb. nov. as the type species, and emended description of the genera Brevundirnonas and Caulobacter Wolf-Rainer Abraham,' Carsten StrOmpl,l Holger Meyer, Sabine Lindholst,l Edward R. B. Moore,' Ruprecht Christ,' Marc Vancanneyt,' B. J. Tindali,3 Antonio Bennasar,' John Smit4 and Michael Tesar' Author for correspondence: Wolf-Rainer Abraham. Tel: +49 531 6181 419. Fax: +49 531 6181 41 1. e-mail :
[email protected] Gesellschaft fur The genus Caulobacter is composed of prosthecate bacteria often specialized Biotechnologische for oligotrophic environments. The taxonomy of Caulobacter has relied Forschung mbH, primarily upon morphological criteria: a strain that visually appeared to be a Mascheroder Weg 1, D- 38124 Braunschweig, member of the Caulobacter has generally been called one without Germany challenge. A polyphasic approach, comprising 165 rDNA sequencing, profiling Laboratorium voor restriction fragments of 165-235 rDNA interspacer regions, lipid analysis, Microbiologie, Universiteit immunological profiling and salt tolerance characterizations, was used Gent, Gent, Belgium to clarify the taxonomy of 76 strains of the genera Caulobacter, Deutsche Sammlung von Brevundimonas, Hyphomonas and Mycoplana. The described species of the Mikroorganismen und genus Caulobacter formed a paraphyletic group with Caulobacter henricii, Zellkulturen, Caulobacter fusiformis, Caulobacter vibrioides and Mycoplana segnis Braunschweig, Germany (Caulobacter segnis comb. nov.) belonging to Caulobacter sensu stricto. Dept of Microbiology and Caulobacter bacteroides (Brevundimonas bacteroides comb. nov.), C. henricii Immunology, University of subsp. aurantiacus (Brevundimonas aurantiaca comb. nov.), Caulobacter British Columbia, intermedius (Brevundimonas intermedia comb.