[Numerical taxonomy of the genus Bacillus]

Eighty-one morphologic and biochemical features of seventy Bacillus strains were studied. Techniques of Numerical Taxonomy were used for this purpose. One method of coding and four others of clustering methods were used. Clustering methods were: weighted an unweighted pair-groups methods using arithmetic averages (WPGMA and UPGMA, respectively) and those of simple and complete linkage. With this methodology four dendrograms were obtained. The highest cophenetic correlation coefficient (0,718) was obtained from UPGMA. With UPGMA a classification in eleven groups and fourteen subgroups was obtained. Group was defined as the cluster of strains linked with similarity coefficients greater than 0.700 and subgroup as the cluster of strains linked with similarity coefficients greater than 0.800. It is important to take into account that in WPGMA dendrogram a very similar distribution was observed. As in classical taxonomy, the characteristic morphologic and physiological variabilities of the genus Bacillus were observed.