<i>Aeromonas Hydrophila</i>

Huys, Geert; Swings, Jean

doi:10.1002/0471263397.env027

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 29 publications

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“…The recent description of Escherichia albertii (Huys et al 2003), a new species that probably spans the genetic gap between E. coli and Salmonella (Hyma et al 2005), as well as analysis of environmental E. coli isolates (Byappanahalli et al 2006;Ishii et al 2006) indicate, however, that the genomic clusters recovered in this group may be the effect of sampling biases rather than naturally occurring clusters. The latter is also more consistent with our prediction that E. coli, owing to its opportunistic lifestyle-namely the possibility to thrive in humid soils and freshwater systems and in a variety of animals-as well as its average-to-large genome size, is more likely to show a continuum of diversity as opposed to genomic clusters.…”

Section: Are There Clusters or A Continuum Of Diversity?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The bacterial species definition in the genomic era

Konstantinidis

Ramette

Tiedje

2006

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

557

445

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The bacterial species definition, despite its eminent practical significance for identification, diagnosis, quarantine and diversity surveys, remains a very difficult issue to advance. Genomics now offers novel insights into intra-species diversity and the potential for emergence of a more soundly based system. Although we share the excitement, we argue that it is premature for a universal change to the definition because current knowledge is based on too few phylogenetic groups and too few samples of natural populations. Our analysis of five important bacterial groups suggests, however, that more stringent standards for species may be justifiable when a solid understanding of gene content and ecological distinctiveness becomes available. Our analysis also reveals what is actually encompassed in a species according to the current standards, in terms of whole-genome sequence and gene-content diversity, and shows that this does not correspond to coherent clusters for the environmental Burkholderia and Shewanella genera examined. In contrast, the obligatory pathogens, which have a very restricted ecological niche, do exhibit clusters. Therefore, the idea of biologically meaningful clusters of diversity that applies to most eukaryotes may not be universally applicable in the microbial world, or if such clusters exist, they may be found at different levels of distinction.

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