Gemmatimonadetes

Gemmatimonadetes is a phylum of Gram negative bacteria first isolated from a wastewater treatment reactor and later found to be common in soils worldwide, where environmental surveys often rank it among the more abundant bacterial phyla despite very few members having been grown in pure culture. The namesake genus Gemmatimonas was noted for accumulating polyphosphate inside its cells, but most knowledge of the diversity and ecological role of this phylum comes from DNA sequences recovered directly from soil and sediment samples rather than from laboratory study.