On a Non-Discrete Concept of Prokaryotic Species
| Autor: | Bhagwan N. Rekadwad, Juan M. Gonzalez, Elena Puerta-Fernández, Margarida Santana |
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| Přispěvatelé: | Junta de Andalucía, European Commission, González Grau, Juan Miguel [0000-0003-4746-6775], Puerta Fernández, Elena [0000-0003-3559-6791], Santana, Margarida [0000-0002-5712-3939], Rekadwad, Bhagwan N. [0000-0002-0954-0180], Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa, González Grau, Juan Miguel, Puerta Fernández, Elena, Santana, Margarida, Rekadwad, Bhagwan N. |
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
Microbiology (medical)
Microbial diversity species Genomics Natural number Microbiology Genome prokaryotes taxonomy 03 medical and health sciences Continuous model Virology Prokaryotes discrete model lcsh:QH301-705.5 Organism Taxonomy taxon 030304 developmental biology Species 0303 health sciences biology 030306 microbiology Continuous modelling biology.organism_classification continuous model Taxon lcsh:Biology (General) Discrete model Evolutionary biology microbial diversity Perspective Taxonomy (biology) Archaea |
| Zdroj: | Microorganisms Digital.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC instname Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (RCAAP) instacron:RCAAP Microorganisms, Vol 8, Iss 1723, p 1723 (2020) |
| ISSN: | 2076-2607 |
| Popis: | 10 páginas.- 3 figuras.- 48 referencias.- Supplementary Materials: The following are available online at http://www.mdpi.com/2076-2607/8/11/1723/s1 Table S1: List of the example species analyzed in this study with the number of genomes available at NCBI (Microbial Genomes database) and the type strains used as reference. Author Contributions.- (This article belongs to the Special Issue Microbial Species Concepts from Theory to Application: A Convergence Study) The taxonomic concept of species has received continuous attention. A microbial species as a discrete box contains a limited number of highly similar microorganisms assigned to that taxon, following a polyphasic approach. In the 21st Century, with the advancements of sequencing technologies and genomics, the existence of a huge prokaryotic diversity has become well known. At present, the prokaryotic species might no longer have to be understood as discrete values (such as 1 or 2, by homology to Natural numbers); rather, it is expected that some microorganisms could be potentially distributed (according to their genome features and phenotypes) in between others (such as decimal numbers between 1 and 2; real numbers). We propose a continuous species concept for microorganisms, which adapts to the current knowledge on the huge diversity, variability and heterogeneity existing among bacteria and archaea. Likely, this concept could be extended to eukaryotic microorganisms. The continuous species concept considers a species to be delimited by the distance between a range of variable features following a Gaussian-type distribution around a reference organism (i.e., its type strain). Some potential pros and cons of a continuous concept are commented on, offering novel perspectives on our understanding of the highly diversified prokaryotic world, thus promoting discussion and further investigation in the field. © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. J.M.G. and E.P.-F. acknowledge support from BIO-288 (Andalusian Government) cofunded by FEDER. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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