Ecology and taxonomy of chitinoclasticCytophaga and related chitin-degrading bacteria isolated from an estuary.

A total of 103 strains of estuarine, Chitinoclastic bacteria isolated from water, and sediment samples collected from the upper Chesapeake Bay, including 17 freshwater and 11 seawater isolates, were subjected to numerical taxonomy analysis. The isolates included 44 yellow-orange pigmented strains classified asCytophaga-like bacteria (CLB) of theCytophagaceae. Salt requirement of the strains ranged from tolerance to ≤1% NaCl to an absolute requirement for NaCl, with 1% NaCl satisfying this requirement. The largest phenon consisted of facultatively anaerobic, oligo-nitrophilic, and flexirubin pigment-producing freshwater and estuarine isolates, and included reference strains of bothCytophaga johnsonae Stanier andCytophaga aquatilis Strohl and Tait. Other phena, containing a smaller number of strains, comprised marine and estuarine isolates which did not produce flexirubin pigments, and required organic nitrogen for growth and for production of chitinolytic enzymes. Salt-requiring, flexirubin pigment-producing, chitin-degrading strains were, on occasion, isolated from estuarine samples and represented phena found in estuaries. Most of theCytophaga isolates, as well as chitin-degrading species not of the genusCytophaga that were isolated from Chesapeake Bay, clustered in phena representing previously described species of aerobic, zymogenic, chitinoclastic bacteria. When the frequency of occurrence of features related to environmental parameters, viz., pH, salinity, temperature range of growth, and growth on media lacking organic nitrogen, was calculated, ecological groupings of strains in the 2 major phena of CLB could be distinguished among the estuarine, chitin-degrading bacteria.