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Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: 11/15/2016 Publication Date: 11/16/2016 Citation: Dunlap, C.A. 2016. Recent taxonomy changes and their impact on biocontrol agents. Meeting Abstract. Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: The revolution in DNA sequencing technology has led to and improved understanding of genetics and taxonomy of biocontrol agents. Our lab recently reported the genomes of some important Bacillus bacterial biocontrol agents, which in turn resulted in a change of taxonomy for these commercially important strains. Our study showed that four species of Bacillus (Bacillus amyloliquefaciens subsp. plantarum, Bacillus methylotrophicus, Bacillus oryzicola, and Bacillus velezensis) are the same species. Under the rules of prokaryote taxonomy, the name of the first described species takes precedent over the other names. In this case, Bacillus velezensis, is the correct nomenclature for these strains. This class of Bacillus strains is the second most popular commercial prokaryotic biocontrol agents after Bacillus thuringiensis. In addition, several commercially important fungal entompathogens have had recent changes in taxonomy, such as Isaria spp., Metarhizium spp., and Beauveria spp. These changes have introduced some confusion into the field. Additional changes are looming for the field, as the recent changes in the international code of nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants have adopted a one fungus equal one name standard for pleomorphic fungi, which would impact most biocontrol fungi. |
