Large-scale integration of amplicon data reveals massive diversity within Saprospirales, mostly originating from saline environmentsLarge-scale integration of amplicon data reveals massive diversity within Saprospirales, mostly originating from saline environments Peer-Reviewed Journal Publication Δημοσίευση σε Περιοδικό με Κριτές 2025-07-142023enThe order Saprospirales, a group of bacteria involved in complex degradation pathways, comprises three officially described families: Saprospiraceae, Lewinellaceae, and Haliscomenobacteraceae. These collectively contain 17 genera and 31 species. The current knowledge on Saprospirales diversity is the product of traditional isolation methods, with the inherited limitations of culture-based approaches. This study utilized the extensive information available in public sequence repositories combined with recent analytical tools to evaluate the global evidence-based diversity of the Saprospirales order. Our analysis resulted in 1183 novel molecular families, 15,033 novel molecular genera, and 188 K novel molecular species. Of those, 7 novel families, 464 novel genera, and 1565 species appeared in abundances at ≥0.1%. Saprospirales were detected in various environments, such as saline water, freshwater, soil, various hosts, wastewater treatment plants, and other bioreactors. Overall, saline water was the environment showing the highest prevalence of Saprospirales, with bioreactors and wastewater treatment plants being the environments where they occurred with the highest abundance. Lewinellaceae was the family containing the majority of the most prevalent species detected, while Saprospiraceae was the family with the majority of the most abundant species found. This analysis should prime researchers to further explore, in a more targeted way, the Saprospirales proportion of microbial dark matter.This project has received funding from the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI) and the General Secretariat for Research and Technology (GSRT) under grant agreement No 710.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Microorganisms117Mourgela_et_al_Microorganisms_11(7)_2023.pdfChania [Greece]Library of TUC2025-07-14application/pdf2.4 MBfree Mourgela Rafaila-Nikola Μουργελα Ραφαηλα--Νικολα Kioukis Antonios Pourjam Mohsen Lagkouvardos Ilias MDPI Saprospirales Saprospiraceae Bacterial diversity Integrative analysis Microbial dark matter Organic matter degradation Marine biodiversity Microbial ecology