Endemic to the deep subsurface biosphere sulphate‐reducing ‘ Desulforudis audaxviator ’ has been called a living microbial fossil due to the high nucleotide sequence identity of its genomes across continents. Evolutionary stasis of this bacterium was established based on the analysis of metagenome assembled genomes, single cell genomes and a single axenic culture. The lack of high‐quality reference genomes necessitates efforts...

Most microorganisms from deep terrestrial subsurface remain yet uncultured. Recent achievements in recovery of metagenome‐assembled genomes (MAG) provide clues for improving cultivation via metabolic reconstructions and other genomic characteristics. Here we report the isolation in pure culture of a thermophilic spirochete with the use of MAGs binned from metagenomes of the deep (>2 km) aquifers broached by two artesian boreho...

Summary Phycisphaera ‐like WD2101 ‘soil group’ is one of the as‐yet‐uncultivated phylogenetic clades within the phylum Planctomycetes . Members of this clade are commonly detected in various terrestrial habitats. This study shows that WD2101 represented one of the major planctomycete groups in 10 boreal peatlands, comprising up to 76% and 36% of all Planctomycetes ‐affiliated 16S rRNA gene reads in raised bogs and eutrophic fe...

Summary Anaerobic enrichments from hypersaline soda lakes with chitin as substrate yielded five closely related anaerobic haloalkaliphilic isolates growing on insoluble chitin by fermentation at pH 10 and salinities up to 3.5 M . The chitinolytic activity was exclusively cell associated. To better understand the biology and evolutionary history of this novel bacterial lineage, the genome of the type strain ACht1 was sequenced....