Campylobacter ornithocola sp. nov., a novel member of the Campylobacter lari group isolated from wild bird faecal samples

During a study on the prevalence and diversity of campylobacteria in wild birds faecal samples from the city of Valdivia (southern Chile) 17 Gram-stain-negative, curved-rod-shaped isolates, were initially identified as Campylobacter lari by PCR-RFLP. Further identification by 16S rRNA sequence analysis revealed that they formed a distinct group in the genus Campylobacter. This unique position was confirmed by the results of analysis of rpoB, atpA and cpn60 gene sequences. The average nucleotide identity between the representative strain WBE38T and the type strain of the most closely related taxon C. larisubsp.concheus (LMG 11760) was 90.8 %. The oxidase and urease activity of the novel isolates enabled them to be phenotypically differentiated from species of the genus Campylobacter with validly published names. Therefore, on the basis of phenotypic, genetic and genomic characterizations, the results of this study clearly indicate that these strains represent a novel species within the genus Campylobacter, for which the name Campylobacter ornithocola sp. nov. is proposed, with the type strain WBE38T (=CECT 9147T=LMG 29815T).