Three novel Bradyrhizobium species from the Bradyrhizobium elkanii supergroup isolated from South African legumes. Bradyrhizobium altum sp. nov., Bradyrhizobium oropedii sp. nov. and Bradyrhizobium acaciae sp. nov. from South Africa show locally restricted and pantropical nodA phylogeographic patterns.

Southern Africa is home to thousands of legume species and many legume groups have their centers of diversity in this region. Fourteen Bradyrhizobium strains were isolated from effective root nodules of southern African legumes.These strains were previously recognized and placed within the Bradyrhizobium genus. The taxonomic status of the novel strains were verified using the geneological concordance approach which included phylogenetic analyses of five individual and concatenated gene sequences. This data placed the Bradyrhizobium strains within the Bradyrhizobium elkanii supergroup. The novelty of these strains were further supported by genomic (Average Nucleotide Identity) and phenotypic analyses. Based on the data, strains represents four novel Bradyrhizobium species from South Africa.