Microbial Diversity

I've ranted about bacterial nomenclature in the past (see h ere ), but this post is specifically about Wolbachia pipientis, and how we should name strain-level variants within a particular host-associated clade (such as w Mel, for example).  Currently, there seem to be multiple ways to write these names and to present them in databases or the literature.  For example: For variants within w Mel, we find examples of the following types of strain names: w MelPop-<insert specific substrain here after the dash> The stuff that comes after the strain name ( w MelPop) sometimes refers to the host insect from which the strain was isolated, or where it currently resides (such as in w MelPop-PYGP) or sometimes refers to how the strain was altered, through sequential passage (such as in w MelPop-CLA).  This variability in the naming schemas used in Wolbachia could lead to confusion down the road. We are currently adding strain level information to some of the stocks that are now