A bacterial strain, designated Jyi-02T, was isolated from a flooded rice field in Taiwan and characterized using the polyphasic taxonomy approach. Cells of strain Jyi-02T were aerobic, Gram-stain-negative, rod-shaped, non-motile and formed yellowish orange coloured colonies. Growth occurred at 10-40 �XC (optimum, 20 �XC) and pH 5.0-9.0 (optimum, pH 7.0) and in the presence of 0-1.0 % NaCl (optimum, 0 %, w/v). The major fatty acids (>10 %) of strain Jyi-02T were C18 : 1�s7c, summed feature 3 (C16 : 1�s7c and/or C16 : 1�s6c) and C14 : 0 2-OH. The polar lipid profile consisted of a mixture of phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidyldimethylethanolamine, sphingoglycolipid, an uncharacterized phospholipid and an uncharacterized lipid. The major polyamine was spermidine. The major isoprenoid quinone was Q-10. The DNA G+C content was 64.8 mol%. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain Jyi-02T belonged to the genus Novosphingobium and had closest phylogenetic similarity to Novosphingobium soli CC-TPE-1T (97.8 %). The DNA-DNA relatedness of strain Jyi-02T with respect to valid published species of the genus Novosphingobium was less than 35 %. Phenotypic characteristics of the novel strain also differed from those of the closest related species of the genus Novosphingobium. On the basis of the genotypic, chemotaxonomic and phenotypic data, strain Jyi-02T represents a novel species in the genus Novosphingobium, for which the name Novosphingobium arvoryzae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is Jyi-02T (=BCRC 80537T=KCTC 32422T).