Arthrobacter genus

Bacterial Taxonomy
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Hi, first of all thank you for your great work, it is truly a great resource.

I have noted that in the latest releases the genera Paenarthrobacter and Pseudarthrobacter were merged into Arthrobacter. Is there a particular reason for this decision?

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Hi Danpal,

Thanks for your kind words about our resource!

We reunited the originally split Arthrobacter (both Pseud- and Paenarthrobacter spp. are former members of the genus Arthrobacter) based on our reference phylogeny and rank normalization. The initial adoption of Pseud- and Paenarthrobacter resulted in eight genus-level groups representing very shallow genera. Additionally, Arthrobacter itself did not have 100% support.

We first merged Pseud- and Arthrobacter into one genus, and following a re-evaluation in the subsequent release, Paenarthrobacter and other shallow placeholder genera were also reunited into a single genus.

Please note that all three names are validly published and are effectively synonyms, as the type species of Pseud- and Paenarthrobacter were originally part of Arthrobacter. In our taxonomic opinion, this constitutes a single genus.

Hope this helps!

Masha

1 Like
3

Thank you for the clarification