Dear Daniel
Thank you for your kind words, and we are glad to hear that you find our resource to be useful for your work!
I had a look at both the reference you sent and our species clusters.
Unfortunately, that paper does not follow any official nomenclature regulations. Taxonomically speaking, authors proposed to unite X.citri with other species, but described the transfer of pathovars as new combinations for some reasons (!).
Please note that ‘pathovar’ is not regulated by the Prokaryotic code as it is outside of the recognised standard ranks. This is a term which is used for practical purposes in pathology. Therefore, the nomenclature consequences proposed in that paper cannot be implemented or validated. One needs to consider the priority of specific names when species are merged together. Unfortunately, sometimes the species name with priority might be not the preferable choice for microbiologists but this is how it is.
Authors need to propose a proper formal reclassification of all those species and then submit the request to ICSP to state why the name with priority cannot be applied.
In GTDB, we also united X. citri with other species and the choice of name is based on priority of publication. Please note that GTDB is a classification resource and we follow nomenclature rules only to express our taxonomic opinions. We are unable to publish all opinions formally as we believe that this should be a community effort. Still we thrive to provide you with what we believe is the best taxonomic solution given the current knowledge.
Please let me know if you have any other questions! I am always happy to help.
Best wishes,
Masha