The status Candidatus for uncultured taxa of Bacteria and Archaea: SWOT analysis.

ABSTRACT: The status Candidatus was introduced to bacterial taxonomy in the 1990s to accommodate uncultured taxa defined by analyses of DNA sequences. Here I review the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) associated with the status Candidatus in the light of a quarter century of use, twinned with recent developments in bacterial taxonomy and sequence-based taxonomic discovery. Despite ambiguities as to its scope, philosophical objections to its use and practical problems in implementation, the status Candidatus has now been applied to over 1000 taxa and has been widely adopted by journals and databases. Although lacking priority under the International Code for Nomenclature of Prokaryotes, many Candidatus names have already achieved de facto sta

SUBMITTER: Pallen MJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8549269 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature