The phylum Bacteroidetes is composed of three large classes of Gram-negative, nonsporeforming, anaerobic or aerobic, and rod-shaped bacteria that are widely distributed in the environment, including in soil, sediments, and sea water, as well as in the guts and on the skin of animals.
Elizabethkingia meningoseptica is a Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium widely distributed in nature. It may be normally present in fish and frogs; it may be isolated from chronic infectious states, as in the sputum of cystic fibrosis patients. In 1959, American bacteriologist Elizabeth O. King was studying unclassified bacteria associated with pediatric meningitis at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, when she isolated an organism that she named Flavobacterium meningosepticum. In 1994, it was reclassified in the genus Chryseobacterium and renamed Chryseobacterium meningosepticum(chryseos = "golden" in Greek, so Chryseobacterium means a golden/yellow rod similar to Flavobacterium). In 2005, a 16S rRNA phylogenetic tree of Chryseobacteria showed that C. meningosepticum along with C. miricola were close to each other but outside the tree of the rest of the Chryseobacteria and were then placed in a new genus Elizabethkingia named after the original discoverer of F. meningosepticum.
The class Flavobacteriia is composed of a single order of environmental bacteria. According to Bernardet et al., Flavobacteriia are Gram-negative aerobic rods, 2–5 μm long, 0.3–0.5 μm wide, with rounded or tapered ends that are motile by gliding, yellow colonies on agar, decompose several polysaccharides but not cellulose, G+C contents of 32–37%, and are widely distributed in soil and fresh and seawater habitats. In particular, Flavobacteriia are prominent members of marine biofilms. The type species Flavobacterium aquatile was isolated from a well in Kent, England.
Flavobacterium columnare is a thin Gram-negative rod bacterium of the genus Flavobacterium. The name derives from the way in which the organism grows in rhizoid columnar formations.
Chryseobacterium is a genus of Gram-negative bacteria. Chryseobacterium species are chemoorganotrophic, rod shape gram-negative bacteria. Chryseobacterium form typical yellow-orange color colonies due to flexirubin-type pigment. The genus contains more than 100 described species from diverse habitats, including freshwater sources, soil, marine fish, and human hosts.
Cytophaga is a genus of Gram-negative, gliding, rod-shaped bacteria. This bacterium is commonly found in soil, rapidly digests crystalline cellulose C. hutchinsonii is able to use its gliding motility to move quickly over surfaces. Although the mechanism for this is not known, there is a belief that the flagella is not used
Actibacter is a genus in the phylum Bacteroidetes (Bacteria). The genus contains a single species, namely A. sediminis.
Flavobacterium frigidarium is a bacterium. It is an aerobic, psychrophilic, xylanolytic and laminarinolytic bacterium from Antarctica. It is gram-negative, non-motile and yellow-pigmented. Its type strain is A2iT.
Psychroflexus tropicus is an obligately halophilic Cytophaga–Flavobacterium–Bacteroides group bacterium. It is Gram-negative, fine rod- to short filament-shaped, with type strain LA1T.
Flexirubin is the main pigment in the bacteria genera Flexibacter, Flavobacterium, Chryseobacterium, and Cytophaga. It was isolated for the first time from Flexibacter elegans. Flexirubin is found in these genera, as well as those that produce carotenoids. The pigment mixture of flexirubin and carotenoids imparts colonies with an intense yellow-orange color. Structurally, this bacteria pigment is based on a polycarboxylic-chromophore that is linked with a phenol by an ester, resulting in an alkyl side-chain. The first total synthesis of flexirubin was reported in 1977.
Dokdonia donghaensis is a strictly aerobic, gram-negative, phototrophic bacterium that thrives in marine environments. The organism can grow at a broad range of temperatures on seawater media. It has the ability to form biofilms, which increases the organism’s resistance to antimicrobial agents, such as tetracycline.
Flavobacterium akiainvivens, or koʻohonua ʻili akia, is a species of gram-negative bacteria in the Flavobacteriaceae family. The specific epithet akiainvivens is Latin and literally means "living on or in ʻākia." It was isolated originally from decaying wood of the endemic Hawai'ian shrub ʻākia.
Flavobacterium aciduliphilum is a Gram-negative, rod-shaped and non-motil bacterium from the genus of Flavobacterium which has been isolated from freshwater from a lake in Jeollabuk-do in Korea.
Flavobacterium algicola is a Gram-negative, rod-shaped, aerobic and non-motile bacterium from the genus of Flavobacterium which has been isolated from a marine algae from the Sea of Okhotsk near Japan.
Flavobacterium beibuense is a bacterium from the genus of Flavobacterium which has been isolated from sediments from the Beibu Gulf in China.
Flavobacterium chungangense is a Gram-negative, rod-shaped and aerobic bacterium from the genus of Flavobacterium which has been isolated from a freshwater lake from the Chung-Ang University in Anseong in Korea.
Flavobacterium chungnamense is a Gram-negative, aerobic, rod-shaped and non-motile bacterium from the genus of Flavobacterium.
Flavobacterium dispersum is a Gram-negative, strictly aerobic and motile bacterium from the genus of Flavobacterium which has been isolated from a freshwater spring in Taiwan.
Finnlakeviridae is a family of bacterial viruses that is not assigned to any higher taxonomic ranks. The family contains a single genus, Finnlakevirus, which contains a single species, Flavobacterium virus FLiP. The virus Flavobacterium phage FLiP was isolated with its gram-negative host bacterium from a boreal freshwater habitat in Central Finland in 2010, and is the first described single-stranded DNA virus with an internal membrane.
Cytophagales is an order of non-spore forming, rod-shaped, Gram-negative bacteria that move through a gliding or flexing motion. These chemoorganotrophs are important remineralizers of organic materials into micronutrients. They are widely dispersed in the environment, found in ecosystems including soil, freshwater, seawater and sea ice. Cytophagales is included in the Bacteroidetes phylum.
