Phylogenetic tree highlighting the position of M. australiensis strain 50-1 BON^T relative to the other type strains within the order Thermoanaerobacterales. The tree was inferred from 1,275 aligned characters [5,6] of the 16S rRNA gene sequence under the maximum likelihood criterion [7] and rooted in accordance with the current taxonomy. The branches are scaled in terms of the expected number of substitutions per site. Numbers to the right of bifurcations are support values from 950 bootstrap replicates [8] if larger than 60%. Lineages with type strain genome sequencing projects registered in GOLD [9] are labeled with one asterisk, those registered as 'Complete and Published' with two asterisks [10,11]. Apparently, even the best BLAST hits show a low degree of similarity to M. australiensis (see above), in agreement with the isolated position of the species in the latest version of the 16S rRNA phylogeny from the All-Species-Living-Tree Project [12]. The species selection for Figure 1 was based on the current taxonomic classification (Table 1).

Scanning electron micrograph of M. australiensis 50-1 BON^T

Graphical circular map of the chromosome. From outside to the center: Genes on forward strand (color by COG categories), Genes on reverse strand (color by COG categories), RNA genes (tRNAs green, rRNAs red, other RNAs black), GC content, GC skew.

Venn diagram depicting the intersections of protein sets (total number of derived protein sequences in parentheses) of M. australiensis, T. thermosaccharolyticum and C. saccharolyticus.