Gardnerella as its own species?

Bacterial Taxonomy
1

Any thoughts on the following preprint and its implications for the Bifidobacterium/Gardnerella delineation in the GTDB?

2

Hi Tim,

Thank you for flagging this preprint to us.

It is an interesting paper, though I would question the justification provided for the proposed genus (and subgenus?) delineations. Our goal is to establish a more practical classification for pathogens in the future, which would indeed benefit species within Bifidobacterium and Gardnerella (and this preprint would be very useful for this future effort). However, all available phylogenetic evidence and rank normalization support the union of these two genera into a single taxon.

At this stage, I don’t believe the preprint has any implications for the current GTDB classification.

Thank you again.

Best wishes,
Masha