Standardised Suffixes in the Nomenclature of the Higher Taxa of Prokaryotes an Aid to Data Mining, Database Administration and Automatic Assignment of Names to Taxonomic Ranks

The formation and use of the scientific names of prokaryotes is governed by the International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes. Originally deriving from the 1935 revision of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, it retains the treatment of scientific names as Latin words. Above the rank of genus the rank is generally denoted by a single, standardised suffix. This has great advantage in text mining and database infrastructure where the identification of the standardised suffix can automatically be linked to the rank at which the scientific name is being used. The only exception at present are names at the rank of class where, although a standardised suffix has been proposed (-ia) it does not allow one to unambiguously identify the rank of the scientific name, since it is also a suffix used at the rank of genus. In addition, due to the fact that the suffix at the rank of class was not regulated in earlier versions of the International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria, there are names that do not follow the standardised suffix. Uniformity would be an advantage. The problem and a proposed solution are discussed.