Last month, many microbiologists were surprised to find that the familiar names and nomenclature for the bacteria and archaea they study had been rewritten, seemingly overnight. On December 10, the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), a collection of biological databases that serves as a reference for researchers, announced that it would be updating how it classifies and names 42 phyla of bacteria and archaea. The names that microbiologists had been using to that point were rendered out of date, creating a disconnect between all previous research and upcoming discoveries.
The actual decision was made earlier—and more gradually than it seemed to some shocked researchers—by the International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes (ICSP). The ICSP is an organization of microbiologists and taxonomy experts who maintain the International Code of Nomenclature for Prokaryotes (ICNP), a set of rules dictating how prokaryotic organisms can be named. Until this recent change, the ICNP ...
