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Could a Focus on the “Why” of Taxonomy Help Taxonomy Better Respond to the Needs of Science and Society?
Genomics has put prokaryotic rank-based taxonomy on a solid phylogenetic foundation. However, most taxonomic ranks were set long before the advent of DNA sequencing and genomics. In this concept paper, we thus ask the following question: should prokaryotic classification schemes besides the current...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9160990/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35663905 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2022.887310 |
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author | Pritchard, Leighton Brown, C. Titus Harrington, Bailey Heath, Lenwood S. Pierce-Ward, N. Tessa Vinatzer, Boris A. |
author_facet | Pritchard, Leighton Brown, C. Titus Harrington, Bailey Heath, Lenwood S. Pierce-Ward, N. Tessa Vinatzer, Boris A. |
author_sort | Pritchard, Leighton |
collection | PubMed |
description | Genomics has put prokaryotic rank-based taxonomy on a solid phylogenetic foundation. However, most taxonomic ranks were set long before the advent of DNA sequencing and genomics. In this concept paper, we thus ask the following question: should prokaryotic classification schemes besides the current phylum-to-species ranks be explored, developed, and incorporated into scientific discourse? Could such alternative schemes provide better solutions to the basic need of science and society for which taxonomy was developed, namely, precise and meaningful identification? A neutral genome-similarity based framework is then described that could allow alternative classification schemes to be explored, compared, and translated into each other without having to choose only one as the gold standard. Classification schemes could thus continue to evolve and be selected according to their benefits and based on how well they fulfill the need for prokaryotic identification. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9160990 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-91609902022-06-03 Could a Focus on the “Why” of Taxonomy Help Taxonomy Better Respond to the Needs of Science and Society? Pritchard, Leighton Brown, C. Titus Harrington, Bailey Heath, Lenwood S. Pierce-Ward, N. Tessa Vinatzer, Boris A. Front Microbiol Microbiology Genomics has put prokaryotic rank-based taxonomy on a solid phylogenetic foundation. However, most taxonomic ranks were set long before the advent of DNA sequencing and genomics. In this concept paper, we thus ask the following question: should prokaryotic classification schemes besides the current phylum-to-species ranks be explored, developed, and incorporated into scientific discourse? Could such alternative schemes provide better solutions to the basic need of science and society for which taxonomy was developed, namely, precise and meaningful identification? A neutral genome-similarity based framework is then described that could allow alternative classification schemes to be explored, compared, and translated into each other without having to choose only one as the gold standard. Classification schemes could thus continue to evolve and be selected according to their benefits and based on how well they fulfill the need for prokaryotic identification. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-05-19 /pmc/articles/PMC9160990/ /pubmed/35663905 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2022.887310 Text en Copyright © 2022 Pritchard, Brown, Harrington, Heath, Pierce-Ward and Vinatzer. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Microbiology Pritchard, Leighton Brown, C. Titus Harrington, Bailey Heath, Lenwood S. Pierce-Ward, N. Tessa Vinatzer, Boris A. Could a Focus on the “Why” of Taxonomy Help Taxonomy Better Respond to the Needs of Science and Society? |
title | Could a Focus on the “Why” of Taxonomy Help Taxonomy Better Respond to the Needs of Science and Society? |
title_full | Could a Focus on the “Why” of Taxonomy Help Taxonomy Better Respond to the Needs of Science and Society? |
title_fullStr | Could a Focus on the “Why” of Taxonomy Help Taxonomy Better Respond to the Needs of Science and Society? |
title_full_unstemmed | Could a Focus on the “Why” of Taxonomy Help Taxonomy Better Respond to the Needs of Science and Society? |
title_short | Could a Focus on the “Why” of Taxonomy Help Taxonomy Better Respond to the Needs of Science and Society? |
title_sort | could a focus on the “why” of taxonomy help taxonomy better respond to the needs of science and society? |
topic | Microbiology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9160990/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35663905 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2022.887310 |
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