Microbial taxonomy in the post-genomic era: Rebuilding from scratch?

Microbial taxonomy should provide adequate descriptions of bacterial, archaeal, and eukaryotic microbial diversity in ecological, clinical, and industrial environments. Its cornerstone, the prokaryote species has been re-evaluated twice. It is time to revisit polyphasic taxonomy, its principles, and...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Campeão, Mariana, Sawabe, Tomoo, Swings, Jean, Thompson, Cristiane C., Amaral, Gilda R., Edwards, Robert A., Polz, Martin F., Dutilh, Bas E., Ussery, David W., Thompson, Fabiano L., Polz, Martin F
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2016
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/104799
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9296-3733
Description
Summary:Microbial taxonomy should provide adequate descriptions of bacterial, archaeal, and eukaryotic microbial diversity in ecological, clinical, and industrial environments. Its cornerstone, the prokaryote species has been re-evaluated twice. It is time to revisit polyphasic taxonomy, its principles, and its practice, including its underlying pragmatic species concept. Ultimately, we will be able to realize an old dream of our predecessor taxonomists and build a genomic-based microbial taxonomy, using standardized and automated curation of high-quality complete genome sequences as the new gold standard.