Abstract
Honey bees and bumble bees harbour a small, defined set of gut bacterial associates. Strains matching sequences from 16S rRNA gene surveys of bee gut microbiotas were isolated from two honey bee species from East Asia. These isolates were mesophlic, non-pigmented, catalase-positive and oxidase-negative. The major fatty acids were iso-C15 : 0, iso-C17 : 0 3-OH, C16 : 0 and C16 : 0 3-OH. The DNA G+C content was 29-31 mol%. They had ∼87 % 16S rRNA gene sequence identity to the closest relatives described. Phylogenetic reconstruction using 20 protein-coding genes showed that these bee-derived strains formed a highly supported monophyletic clade, sister to the clade containing species of the genera Chryseobacterium and Elizabethkingia within the family Flavobacteriaceae of the phylum Bacteroidetes. On the basis of phenotypic and genotypic characteristics, we propose placing these strains in a novel genus and species: Apibacter adventoris gen. nov., sp. nov. The type strain of Apibacter adventoris is wkB301T ( = NRRL B-65307T = NCIMB 14986T).