Abstract

Strain I-SCBP12nT, a novel Gram- stain-negative, aerobic, non- spore-forming, motile - by-gliding and rod-shaped bacterium, was isolated from a chinstrap penguin chick (Pygoscelis antarcticus) during a 2015 expedition to the Chilean Antarctic territory. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing confirmed that strain I-SCBP12nT belonged to the genus Flavobacte-rium, being closely related to strains Flavobacterium chryseum P3160T (98.52 %), Flavobacterium hercynium WB 4.2-33T (98.47 %) and Flavobacterium chilense LM-19-FpT (98.47 %). The genome size of strain I-SCBP12nT was 3.69 Mb with DNA G+C content 31.95 mol%. Genomic comparisons of strain I-SCBP12nT with type species in the genus Flavobacterium were performed, with obtained average values near 75.17 and 84.33 % for the BLAST and MUMer analyses of average nucleotide identity, respectively, and 0.86 for the tetranucleotides frequency analysis. These values are far from the accepted species cut -off values. Strain I-SCBP12nT contained MK -6 as the predominant menaquinone and the major polar lipids were aminophospholipid, an unidenti-fied aminolipid and unidentified lipids. The predominant fatty acids (> 5 %) were iso-C14:0, iso-C15:0, anteiso-C15:0, iso-C16:0, iso-C16:1, iso-C16: 0 3 -OH, C15: 1 omega 6c and summed feature 3 (C16:1 omega 7c/C16: 1 omega 6c). Phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and genomic data supported the assignment of strain I-SCBP12nT (=CECT 30404T=RGM 3223T) to a novel species of Flavobacterium, for which the name Fla-vobacterium pygoscelis sp. nov. is proposed.