The utility of bacterial nomenclature
Lately I've been thinking a lot about the "culture" behind bacterial nomenclature. Of course there are the extremes: Shigella and Escherichia coli are classified as different genera but often the phenotype used to characterize these strains is horizontally transmitted (a plasmid harboring pathogenicity determinants) [ 1 ]. Then you've got the case of Wolbachia pipientis, the bug inside a bug that my lab currently investigates. Researchers in the field have decided not to name each strain found in each distinct host, regardless of the divergence between strains [ 2 ] (but see [ 3 ] for an interesting counterpoint). Obviously, the species concept in bacteria is extremely difficult to define and has been reviewed at length elsewhere [ 4-6 ]. What is absolutely true is that the markers we use to characterize diversity in the environment (be it the rRNA, core proteins, or enzymes) are simply that – markers. They d...