gen. nov., sp. nov. and sp. nov., novel members of fam. nov. within the order isolated from soil.

Members of the metabolically diverse order inhabit a wide range of environments. Two strains affiliated with this order were isolated from soils in Germany and characterized by a polyphasic approach. Cells of strains 0125_3 and Swamp67 are Gram-negative rods, non-motile, non-spore-forming, non-capsulated and divide by binary fission. They tested catalase-negative, but positive for cytochrome -oxidase. Both strains form small white colonies on agar plates and grow aerobically and chemoorganotrophically on SSE/HD 1 : 10 medium, preferably utilizing organic acids and proteinaceous substrates. Strains 0125_3 and Swamp67 are mesophilic and grow optimally without NaCl addition at slightly alkaline conditions. Major fatty acids are C  7, C and C. The major polar lipids are diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidyglycerol. The predominant respiratory quinone is Q-8. The G+C content for 0125_3 and Swamp67 was 67 and 66.1 %, respectively. The 16S rRNA gene analysis indicated that the closest relatives (<91 % sequence similarity) of strain 0125_3 were ATCC 25196, FAM5 and AcBE2-1, while ATCC 25196, Nv1 and APG3 were closest to strain Swamp67. The two novel strains shared 97.4 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity with one another and show low average nucleotide identity of their genomes (83.8 %). Based on the phenotypic, chemotaxonomic, genomic and phylogenetic analysis, we propose the two novel species sp. nov (type strain 0125_3=DSM 104443=LMG 29998=CECT 9241) and sp. nov. (type strain Swamp67=DSM 104440=LMG 29997=CECT 9242) of the novel genus gen. nov., within the novel family fam. nov.