Seas, waters and spirits: explore the latest microbial discoveries
Posted on December 1, 2024 by Clare Baker
Each month, the Microbiology Society publishes the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, which details newly discovered species of bacteria, fungi and protists. Here are some of the new species that have been discovered and the places they've been found.
Isolated, extreme environments with limited impact on their environments, such as the Antarctic and Arctic, are regarded as some of the most pristine locations on Earth and valuable places for the isolation of micro-organisms. It will come as no surprise then that December’s ‘New to Science’ is starting exactly the same way as November’s—with a frosty beginning. Two novel Gram-stain-negative bacterial strains were isolated from seawater in Arctic Kongsfjorden in the Ny-Ålesund area, Svalbard. Pseudomonas huanghezhanensis and Pseudomonas fjordensis are an interesting pair as they have the ability to grow using dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) as the sole carbon source.
Abandoned miners cabins at Camp Mansfield, Svalbard, and panoramic view of the Kongsfjorden and surrounding mountains.
During an investigation of marine actinomycete resources in the Xisha Islands in the northern South China Sea, researchers isolated a Microbispora-like micro-organism, which produced paired spores, from the gill of a leopard coral grouper. They named the strain Microbispora maris, with ‘maris’ being the Latin word for “of the sea”.
Next up is another pair of microbes; this time, they were isolated from drinking water. Dyadobacter helix and Dyadobacter linearis were both isolated from Barcelona, Spain. D. helix was found in a drinking water treatment plant, and D. linearis was found in the drinking water distribution network. Both strains grow on R2A agar, forming mucous, bright yellow colonies.
Our next microbes come from a Chinese alcoholic spirit. The first of these microbes is Starmerella fangiana, a novel yeast species found during a survey of yeast diversity in high-temperature Daqu. Daqu is a fermentation starter for Chinese sauce-flavoured Baijiu, a Chinese alcoholic spirit (which might remind most drinkers of soy sauce). S. fangiana, was named in honour of Xinfang Fang for his pioneering contributions to the study of yeasts associated with Daqu and Baijiu fermentation in China.
Our final two microbes are the next to come from Chinese tipples. Clostridium lapidicellarium and Clostridium moutaii are two new Gram-stain-positive bacterial species isolated from pit mud in a fermentation cellar used for producing—you guessed it—sauce-flavour Chinese baijiu. Sauce-flavour Chinese baijiu production involves natural fermentation in stone cellars with a 20-30 cm layer of mud at the base. There’s a year-long spontaneous solid-state fermentation process, and during this time, the cellars maintain anaerobic (no oxygen) and high ethanol concentrations, which promotes diverse populations of obligate and facultative anaerobic microbes. The genus Clostridium makes up a lot of these microbes, as it can generate short-chain fatty acids, ethanol and other carbohydrate derivatives, which influence the smell and quality of the liquor.