General Information: Isolated from Resurrection Bay in the Gulf of Alaska. It is a model oligotrophic organism and forms a very small cell size. his genus was created from the Sphingomonas genus on the basis of phylogenetic, phenotypic, and chemotaxonomic characteristics. Sphingopyxis alaskensis is one of the most numerically abundant microbes found in oligotrophic marine waters and is an important contributor of biomass.