Description of two new species of Halomonas : Halomonas israelensis sp.nov. and Halomonas canadensis sp.nov.

Six well-known strains of halotolerant bacteria, including two strains previously identified only as NRCC 41227 and Ba1, have been compared using 125 phenotypic characters and DNA-DNA hybridization. Although these strains represent some of the most heavily studied salt-tolerant bacteria, they have never been taxonomically compared. The data presented show that these bacteria form a relatively homogeneous group related at the genus level. The taxonomic comparison showed that these six organisms represented four distinct species all related above the 65% Jaccard coefficient level. In addition to two previously identified bacterial species, Halomonas elongata (ATCC 33173T) and Halomonas halodurans (ATCC 29686T), the strains included in this study represent two previously unnamed Halomonas species. These two new taxa have been assigned the names Halomonas israelensis (ATCC 43985T) and Halomonas canadensis (NRCC 41227T = ATCC 43984). DNA-DNA hybridization show that these two species are related to the type species H. elongata at 54.9 and 48.9%, respectively.