Uncultivated microbes in need of their own taxonomy

The great majority of microbial species remains uncultured, severely limiting their taxonomic characterization and thus communication among scientists. Although Candidatus was devised as a provisional category to classify uncultured taxa, it has not been widely accepted owing to technical limitations and lack of priority of Candidatus names in the official nomenclature. High-throughput sequencing provides the potential for data-rich taxonomic descriptions of uncultivated microbes, comparable in quality to those of cultured organisms. In order to fully realize this potential, standards and guidelines on how to perform these descriptions are needed. Here we aimed to outline these standards and draw the roadmap…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Awards: 1356288, 1241046
• MD
  Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad

  Award: CLG2015_66686-C3-1-P
• M
  Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
• ER
  European Regional Development Fund