PHYLOGENETIC RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN BACILLUS SPECIES AND RELATED GENERA INFERRED FROM 16S RDNA SEQUENCES

Neighbor-joining, maximum-parsimony, minimum-evolution, maximum-likelihood and Bayesian trees constructed based on 16S rDNA sequences of 181 type strains of Bacillus species and related taxa manifested nine phylogenetic groups. The phylogenetic analysis showed that Bacillus was not a monophyletic group. B. subtilis was in Group 1. Group 4, 6 and 8 respectively consisted of thermophiles, halophilic or halotolerant bacilli and alkaliphilic bacilli. Group 2, 4 and 8 consisting of Bacillus species and related genera demonstrated that the current taxonomic system did not agree well with the 16S rDNA evolutionary trees. The position of Caryophanaceae and Planococcaceae in Group 2 suggested that they might be transferred into Bacillaceae, and the heterogeneity of Group 2 implied that some Bacillus species in it might belong to several new genera. Group 9 was mainly comprised of the genera (excluding Bacillus) of Bacillaceae, so some Bacillus species in Group 9: B. salarius, B. qingdaonensis and B. thermcloacae might not belong to Bacillus. Four Bacillus species, B. schlegelii, B. tusciae, B. edaphicus and B. mucilaginosus were clearly placed outside the nine groups.