Rhodopirellula heiligendammensis sp. nov., Rhodopirellula pilleata sp. nov., and Rhodopirellula solitaria sp. nov. isolated from natural or artificial marine surfaces in Northern Germany and California, USA, and emended description of the genus Rhodopirellula

Expanding the collection of Planctomycetes by characterisation of novel species is key to better understanding of their complex lifestyles, uncommon cell biology and unexplored metabolism. Here, we isolated three novel planctomycetal strains from a kelp forest on the California Coastline at Monterey Bay or from plastic surfaces submerged in the Baltic Sea and the estuary of the river Warnow in the northeast of Germany. According to our phylogenetic analysis, the isolated strains Poly21^T, Pla100^T and CA85^T represent three novel species within the genus Rhodopirellula. All three show typical planctomycetal traits such as division by budding. All are aerobic, mesophilic chemoheterotrophs and show genomic features comparable to other described Rhodopirellula species. However, strain CA85^T is exceptional as it forms cream colonies, but no aggregates, which is a notable deviation from the pink- to red-pigmented and aggregate-forming Rhodopirellula species known thus far. We propose the names Rhodopirellula heiligendammensis sp. nov., Rhodopirellula pilleata sp. nov., and Rhodopirellula solitaria sp. nov. for the novel strains Poly21^T (DSM 102266^T = LMG 29467^T = CECT 9847^T = VKM B-3435^T), Pla100^T (DSM 102937^T = LMG 29465^T) and CA85^T (DSM 109595^T = LMG 29699^T = VKM B-3451^T), respectively, which we present as the respective type strains of these novel species.