Welcome to Microbial Systematics for the Next Decade

Over half of the phylum-level lineages of Bacteria and Archaea have never been cultivated in the laboratory. Single-cell genomics, metagenomics, and microbial ecology studies are providing ever-increasing insight into the biology of these organisms. However, uncultivated microorganisms are not recognized by the International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes. We propose to conduct three meetings over the course of 18 months to convene a group of world experts on the systematics and genomics of Bacteria and Archaea along with experts on the systematics of eukaryotes to discuss the status of uncultivated Bacteria and Archaea in systematics. The workshops will focus on (1) discussing several existing proposals with the goal to determine whether a single classification for cultivated and uncultivated prokaryotes can be created; (2) developing, refining, or exploring new frontiers in database development to increase communication between existing databases on new developments in the systematics of uncultured microorganisms; and (3) communicating our thoughts with stakeholders through publication of a roadmap for a unified microbial taxonomy over the next decade. Each workshop will be preceded by 3-4 one-hour seminar/discussions during which we well present key issues affecting the landscape of modern microbial systematics. We hope you will get involved and share your vision on the next decade of microbial systematics

The organizing committee:

Brian Hedlund, Anna-Louise Reysenbach, Phil Hugenholtz, Kostas Konstantinidis, Ramon Rossello-Mora, Antonio Ventosa, Barny Whitman