2024-03-29T06:27:46Zhttp://digital.csic.es/dspace-oai/requestoai:digital.csic.es:10261/2229422021-12-27T16:31:32Zcom_10261_15com_10261_6col_10261_268
On a non-discrete concept of prokaryotic species
González Grau, Juan Miguel
Puerta Fernández, Elena
Santana, Margarida
Rekadwad, Bhagwan N.
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]
Continuous model
Discrete model
Microbial diversity
Prokaryotes
Species
Taxon
Taxonomy
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.
2020-11-16T10:26:38Z
2020-11-16T10:26:38Z
2020-11-01
artículo
Microorganisms 8(11): 1723 (2020)
http://hdl.handle.net/10261/222942
10.3390/microorganisms8111723
2076-2607
http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000780
http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100011011
33158054
eng
Publisher's version
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms8111723
Sí
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
openAccess
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute