Abstract. The operator which constructs the pseudovariety generated by the idempotent-generated semigroups of a given pseudovariety is investigated. Several relevant examples of pseudovarieties generated by their idempotentgenerated elements are given as well as some properties of this operator. Particular attention is paid to the pseudovarieties in {J, R, L, DA} concerning this operator and their generator ranks and idempotent-generator ranks.