Arthrobacter crusticolasp. nov., Isolated from Biological Soil Crusts in the Mu Us Sandy Land, China

Mu Us Sandy Land in China is a very fragile ecological environment due to serious desertification. While attempting to gain insights into the biodiversity of biological soil crusts of Mu Us Sandy Land, a novel bacterial strain, SLN-3(T), was isolated. It was phylogenetically placed into the genusArthrobacterwithin the familyMicrococcaceaebased on its 16S rRNA gene sequence. The most closely related species wereArthrobacter ruberMDB1-42(T)(98.6%) andArthrobacter agilisDSM 20550(T)(98.3%). Cells of the novel species were Gram-stain-positive, aerobic, and non-endospore-forming. The values of average nucleotide identity and the digital DNA-DNA hybridization between SLN-3(T)and MDB1-42(T)were 84.9% and 21.3%, respectively. The draft genome size of strain SLN-3(T)was 3.67 Mb, and its genomic G+C content was 68.1%. The predominant cellular fatty acids were anteiso-C(15:0)and C(17:0)anteiso. Glucose, galactose, and ribose were the whole-cell sugars. The polar lipids consisted of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol, glycolipid, and phospholipid. The peptidoglycan contained lysine, glutamic acid, and alanine. The predominant menaquinone was MK-9(H-2). Based on the data from the chemotaxonomic, phylogenetic, and phenotypic evidence, a novel species namedArthrobacter crusticolasp. nov is proposed, whose type strain is SLN-3(T)(= ACCC 61595(T) = JCM 33723(T)).