A numerical taxonomic study of 138 Bacillus strains isolated from North Sea sediments is presented. The clustering process, based on 63 selected multistate features, resulted in the formation of two clusters separated by the Voges-Proskauer reaction. Further subdivision yielded six phenons, one of which corresponded to the conventional species Bacillus licheniformis. The strains, taken in the order in which they appeared in the dendrogram, exhibited a gradient in the frequency of positive answers to biochemical and physiological tests.
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