SILVA Database classification taxa names doubt ?

[akash (Akash Nagarajan)]

Hello,

I ran the taxonomic classification using the SILVA trained classifier downloaded from QIIME2 resources webpage. For the classification of phylum Bacteriodetes, it turned up as phylum Bacteroidota.

I had a doubt whether it is typo or if anybody else has come across something like this using SILVA database ? Thank you.

[SoilRotifer (Mike Robeson)]

Hi @akash,

@akash

For the classification of phylum Bacteriodetes, it turned up as phylum Bacteroidota.

I had a doubt whether it is typo

This is not a typo, microbial taxonomy is currently in flux. You can see some details about Bacteroidota changes. Particularly given all of the increasing knowledge of microbial relationships being discovered through genomics. Many databases, including SILVA and GTDB are gradually updating and refining taxonomy.

To give you an idea of how much, and how quickly, taxonomy is changing check out the following :

• Microbial Taxonomy Run Amok
• A complete domain-to-species taxonomy for Bacteria and Archaea
• A standardized bacterial taxonomy based on genome phylogeny substantially revises the tree of life
• Proposal of the suffix –ota to denote phyla. Addendum to ‘Proposal to include the rank of phylum in the International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes’

-Cheers!
-Mike

[akash (Akash Nagarajan)]

Thank you so much for enlightening me on this ! I also thought it might be an alternated name but Google didn’t turn up any results so was doubtful then. But understand now

Best,
Akash