sp. nov.: A Plant-Growth-Promoting and Biocontrol Species Isolated From a River Otter in Castril, Granada, Southern Spain.

A strictly aerobic, chemoheterotrophic, endospore-forming, Gram-positive, rod-shaped bacterial strain N3 was isolated from the feces of a river otter in Castril (Granada, southern Spain). It is halotolerant, motile, and catalase-, oxidase-, ACC deaminase-, and C4- and C8-lipase-positive. It promotes tomato plant growth and can reduce virulence in CECT 222 and LMG 25993 through interference in their quorum-sensing systems, although other antagonistic mechanisms could also occur. A phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence as well as the phenotypic and phylogenomic analyses indicated that the strain N3 is a novel species of the genus , with the highest 16S rRNA sequence similar to that of DSM 8801 (99.93%) and DSM 1321 (99.80%). Genomic digital DNA-DNA hybridization (dDDH) between the strain N3 and DSM 8801 and was 12.8 and 69.1%, respectively, and the average nucleotide identity (ANIb) of strain N3 and DSM 8801 and was 67.84 and 93.21%, respectively. The genomic G + C content was 40.3 mol%. Its main cellular fatty acids were anteiso-C and iso-C. Using 16S rRNA phylogenetic and phylogenomic analyses, together with the chemotaxonomic and phenotypic data, we demonstrated that the type strain N3 (=CECT 30509 = LMG 32505) is a novel species of the genus and the name sp. nov. is proposed.