Imhoff, Johannes F.

Madigan, Michael T.

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Downloaded from www.microbiologyresearch.org byIP:  134.245.215.185On: Wed, 24 May 2017 13:12:48MinutesMichael T. Madigan, SecretaryJohannes F. Imhoff, ChairmanInternational Committee on Systematics ofProkaryotesSubcommittee on the taxonomy of phototrophicbacteriaMinutes of the meetings, 29 August 2006, Pau, FranceSession 1 – Closed meetingMinute 1. Call to order. The closed meeting was held on29 August 2006 at the Palais Beaumont in Pau, France.The meeting was called to order by the chairman,Johannes F. Imhoff, at 20 : 05.Minute 2. Record of attendance. The members presentwere R. W. Castenholz (Eugene, OR, USA), P. Caumette(Pau, France), F. Garcia-Pichel (Tempe, AZ, USA), V. M.Gorlenko (Moscow, Russia), J. F. Imhoff (Kiel, Germany),M. T. Madigan (Carbondale, IL, USA), A. Oren (Jerusalem,Israel), J. Overmann (Mu¨nchen, Germany), A. Wilmotte(Lie`ge, Belgium) and V. Yurkov (Winnipeg, Manitoba,Canada). Apologies were received from M. Herdman(Paris, France), A. Hiraishi (Toyohashi, Japan), R. Rippka(Paris, France) and S. Ventura (Florence, Italy).Minute 3. Approval of agenda. The agenda, as amended,was approved.Minute 4. Minutes of the previous meeting. The min-utes of the previous meeting, held in Tokyo, Japan, on 27August 2003, were approved unanimously.Minute 5. Chairman’s report. The chairman informedthe subcommittee on the current state of recommendedstandards for the description of new species of anoxygenicphototrophic bacteria and of cyanobacteria. Recom-mended standards for the description of new species ofanoxygenic phototrophic bacteria were published in 2004[Imhoff & Caumette, Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 54 (2004),1415–1421]. Recommended standards for the descriptionof species of the cyanobacteria are in a highly advancedstate, but have been held back (see Minute 16).After many years of processing, the second volume of thesecond edition of Bergey’s Manual of Systematic Bacteriologytreating the Proteobacteria and including purple sulfur andpurple non-sulfur bacteria was finally published in 2005. Itwas pointed out that the chapters on phototrophic pro-teobacteria are not really up to date, because they werewritten in 1997 and, unfortunately, the final update wasaccepted in 2000. A number of higher taxa have beenestablished and most genera of phototrophic purple bacteriawere assigned to new families and orders. The purple sulfurbacteria families Ectothiorhodospiraceae and Chromatiaceaeare assigned to the order Chromatiales. Rhodocyclus is in thefamily Rhodocyclaceae and order Rhodocyclales, Rhodobacter(with Rhodobaca and Rhodovulum) is in the Rhodobacter-aceae and Rhodobacterales, Rhodospirillum and others are inthe Rhodospirillaceae and Rhodospirillales. Altogether, thepurple non-sulfur bacteria are placed into eight familiesand five orders. An introductory chapter for these bacteria(and another for the ‘ABC bacteria’, the aerobic bacterio-chlorophyll-containing bacteria of the Alphaproteobacteria)is included in the second edition of Bergey’s Manual ofSystematic Bacteriology (vol. 2, part A).Minute 6. Changes in membership. Ch. Sasikala (Hydera-bad, India) was approved on a unanimous show of handsas a new member of the subcommittee.Minute 7. Election of officers. Johannes F. Imhoff wasre-elected as chairman for another period. Michael Madigan,who has been secretary for the past 9 years, stepped downfrom this post. The chairman and the subcommitteeexpressed their gratitude to M. Madigan for his work forthe subcommittee. Annick Wilmotte was elected as thenew secretary.Minute 8. Next meeting. The next meeting of this sub-committee will be at the meeting of the InternationalSymposium on Phototrophic Prokaryotes in Montreal inAugust 2009.Minute 9. Adjournment. The closed meeting wasadjourned at 20 : 25 on 29 August 2006.Session 2 – Open meetingMinute 10. Call to order. The open meeting was calledto order by the chairman, Johannes F. Imhoff, at 20 : 35on 29 August 2006.Minute 11. Record of attendance. All those present atthe closed meeting were present. In addition, H.-G.Tru¨per and E. Tru¨per (Germany), B. Heyduck-So¨ller(Germany), W. Serrano (Germany), K. Waleron (Poland),A. Ranchou-Peyruse (France), M. T. Nunez-Cardona(Mexico), C. Wiedner (Germany), J. Ru¨cker (Germany),65116 G 2007 IUMS Printed in Great Britain 1169International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology (2007), 57, 1169–1171 DOI 10.1099/ijs.0.65116-0Downloaded from www.microbiologyresearch.org byIP:  134.245.215.185On: Wed, 24 May 2017 13:12:48K. Sivonen (Finland), L. Hoffmann (Luxembourg), R.Guyoneaud (France), D. Ionescu (Israel) and M. Bilys(Canada) attended the open meeting.Minute 12. Chairman’s report. The chairman pointedout that many positive responses in regard to the pub-lished recommended standards for the description of newspecies of anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria have demon-strated the urgent need for such a document and supportthe efforts made in this regard. He also stated that a simi-lar document for the cyanobacteria, as discussed at theprevious meeting, has been circulated and finalized forpublication. However, the process was stopped becausenomenclatural problems were brought up by subcom-mittee members and used as arguments not to publish thestandards at the present time (see Minute 16).In addition, he pointed out that information on thissubcommittee is available from the website of the ICSP(http://www.the-icsp.org), including membership, taxacovered and minutes of previous meetings.Minute 13. Phototrophic bacteria in culture collec-tions. Discussion was lively on the lack of availability ofnational culture collections that are both able and willingto grow and maintain phototrophic prokaryotes. For validpublication of names of new taxa, two culture collectionsin different countries must hold and certify availability ofthe type strain. It was pointed out that exceptions to the‘two collections’ rule have been made by the ICSP, butwill not be granted lightly and only on a case-by-casebasis. Almost everyone contributed with their own experi-ence of long delays in species descriptions resulting fromthis issue or even the impossibility of publication, simplybecause of the inability of the culture collections to holdthe strains. All agreed that most culture collections areneither equipped nor funded to grow anaerobic photo-trophic prokaryotes and that, in many cases, the scientificpersonnel at the culture collection are incapable of grow-ing all but very routine anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria.Though the problems were considered really serious forthe anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria, they are even moresevere with the cyanobacteria (with the current exceptionof the Pasteur collection in Paris). H.-G. Tru¨per suggestedthat the chair write to the head of the World Federationof Culture Collections about their inability to handle cul-tures of phototrophic prokaryotes and asking how theycan or are willing to improve the situation.Minute 14. New taxa described. A number of new taxahave been described during recent years, in particularmany new ABC bacteria. There was not enough time todiscuss all of them. Instead, a few groups were high-lighted. V. M. Gorlenko reported on developments withEctothiorhodospiraceae and discussed problems with thenew genus and species ‘Ectothiorhodosinus mongolicus’. Itwas so far not possible to effect valid publication of thename of this bacterium because of the inability of culturecollections to handle the type strain of this species.V. Yurkov reported on the current situation of the taxono-my of the ABC bacteria. Many new species and also newgenera have been described. Among the new genera areRhodovarius (Rhodovarius lipocyclicus), Roseisalinus (Rosei-salinus antarcticus), Roseivirga (Roseivirga ehrenbergii andRoseivirga echinicomitans), Roseicyclus (Roseicyclus maho-neyensis) and Roseibacterium (Roseibacterium elongatum).One of the major problems is that, in new species descrip-tions, the genus description is not always considered, andnew species are included in genera defined as being aerobicphototrophic bacteria even though they do not containbacteriochlorophyll and do not conform to the definition ofthe genus that they have been assigned to. Assignment isoften made merely by 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity.Incorrect taxonomic treatment of new species is a matter ofcontinued confusion in taxonomy (an example is thetaxonomy of the genus Roseobacter and several speciesthereof) and therefore all attempts must be made to avoidincorrect description of new taxa. It was pointed out that,quite ironically, many of the papers proposing incorrecttaxonomic changes or descriptions of taxa have passedthrough the review process of the IJSEM, but apparently andunfortunately not through the hands of competent membersof this subcommittee. The chairman asked V. Yurkov tocompile the present state of taxonomy in a paper to bepublished in IJSEM and to treat each of the incorrect issuesformally and separately. The discussion (contributions fromH.-G. Tru¨per, J. F. Imhoff and J. Overmann) on this topicfocused on the significance of photosynthesis as a propertythat defines species and genera. No formal statement wasmade.Minute 15. Three-letter abbreviations for genera. Fornew genera of anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria describedin the past few years, the following abbreviations areproposed: ‘Ectothiorhodosinus’, Ets.; Rhodovarius, Rvs.;Roseisalinus, Ris.; Roseivirga, Riv.; Roseicyclus, Ric.; Rosei-bacterium, Rim.Minute 16. Nomenclature of cyanobacteria. The chair-man pointed out that the subcommittee has now beenunable to resolve this issue successfully for several decadesand that there is an urgent need to find solutions. Thestate of the taxonomy and nomenclature of cyanobacteriais problematic. Major problems are due to the treatmentof cyanobacteria in both the Botanical and BacteriologicalCodes of Nomenclature. A. Oren gave a detailed overviewof the current situation, including the widespread scatter-ing of the botanical literature, the issue of priority of pub-lished new names and differences in living type strainsversus non-living type specimens. Recent publicationsdealing with these problems include papers by Oren &Tindall [Algol Stud 117 (2005), 39–52] and Hoffman [AlgolStud 117 (2005), 13–29]. The conclusion of A. Oren wasthat now is not the right time for publication of a list ofstandards recommended for description of cyanobacteria,but that a solution to the basic nomenclatural problemsshould be awaited. He further pointed out that it is1170 International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology 57MinutesDownloaded from www.microbiologyresearch.org byIP:  134.245.215.185On: Wed, 24 May 2017 13:12:48currently almost impossible to validly publish the name ofa cyanobacterial species name under the BacteriologicalCode because of problems of nomenclature. However, thenext formal meeting of representatives of the BotanicalCode will not take place until 2011 and, according to A.Oren, no formal decisions can be made prior to this date.The chairman expressed his strong disappointment thatthe taxonomy of cyanobacteria will be again placed ‘onhold’ for many years and called for a speeding up of thematter.Proposals from R. Rippka and M. Herdman (PasteurCulture Collection of Cyanobacteria), communicated byJ. F. Imhoff, strongly encouraged the development ofminimal standards now and suggested the followingactivities:a ‘list of approved names of cyanobacteria’ should be pre-pared as soon as possible;a website should be created that would permit authors toconsult the appropriate references, illustrations, synonymsetc.;an approach similar to the ‘list of Candidatus’ could beintroduced: the names of new cyanobacterial genera orspecies would only be validly published after a delay of1–2 years, during which time objections concerning theirnomenclature can be made.Subcommittee support for the concept of a list of approvednames of cyanobacteria and for publishing such a list as soonas possible was very strong. The immediate formation of acommittee or working group of botanists and bacteriolo-gists to work out a list of approved names, to reconciledifferences in the two codes in order to describe and namecyanobacteria properly and to propose solutions for theproblems of nomenclature well before 2011 was proposedand strongly supported by the subcommittee. Such acommittee could work towards the target date of 2011, tohave proposals ready for consideration and decision at thenext formal meeting of representatives of the BotanicalCode. It was pointed out that the working group coulddevelop proposals by email correspondence and holdmeetings via electronic means. As members of thiscommittee, A. Oren, L. Hoffmann and A. Wilmotte werenominated, and it was proposed that the committee start itswork immediately. The chairman asked to be informedabout all future steps and activities.Minute 17. Adjournment. The open meeting wasadjourned at 23 : 05 on 29 August 2006.http://ijs.sgmjournals.org 1171Minutes

International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes. Subcommittee on the taxonomy of phototrophic bacteria. Minutes of the meetings 2006, Pau, France

International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes. Subcommittee on the taxonomy of phototrophic bacteria. Minutes of the meetings 2006, Pau, France

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