An intense colored marine bacterium, identified as Cellulophaga lytica, was isolated
previously from a sea anemone surface on the Charente-Maritime rocky shore (Atlantic
Coast, France), and iridescence of its colonies under direct light was recently described. In
addition, iridescence intensities were found to differ strongly between C. lytica strains from
different culture collections. However, importantly, the occurrence and distribution of
iridescent bacteria in the marine environment were still unknown. Therefore, in this study, a …