“…It should be noted that genomic data are increasingly available for these species (up to 40 16S rDNA sequences for the Bradyrhizobium species) (Willems et al, 2001), but phenotypic data that could help in the polyphasic taxonomy of these bacteria are still lacking. As observed among Bradyrhizobium species and for the species described in this study or as described previously for Bacillus species (Ash et al, 1991 ;Fox et al, 1992), over-reliance on 16S rDNA sequence comparisons may be foolhardy and should therefore be associated with DNA-DNA hybridization data . In this study, A. felis and A. felis genospecies A represent two distinct genospecies on the basis of DNA-DNA hybridization and phenotypic data such as susceptibility to antibiotics, SDS-PAGE profile and whole-cell fatty acid composition (Wayne et al, 1987 ;Grimont et al, 1998), whereas they exhibit levels of 16S rDNA sequence similarity of 99n9%.…”