Herbaspirillum piri sp. nov., isolated from bark of a pear tree.

A Gram-stain-negative, aerobic, motile bacterial strain, shQ-4, was isolated from a pear tree in Henan Province, China. The strain grew at 10-41 °C, at pH 4.0-8.0 and in the presence of 1-3 % (w/v) NaCl. It shared highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity (96.66 %) with Herbaspirillum chlorophenolicum CPW301. The phylogenetic tree based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain shQ-4 formed a distinct branch next to reference species in the genus Herbaspirillum. The profile of major polar lipids of strain shQ-4 contained phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), diphosphatidylglycerol (DPG), phosphatidylglycerol (PG) and an unidentified aminophospholipid (APL). The major respiratory quinone was Q-8. The major fatty acids of this strain were C16 : 0, summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω6c/C16 : 1ω7c), C17 : 0 cyclo and C18 : 0. Strain shQ-4 is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Herbaspirillum, with the proposed name Herbaspirillum piri sp. nov. The type strain is shQ-4 (=CFCC 14641=KCTC 52804).