Escherichia coli is the most researched microbial organism in the world. Its varied impact on
human health, consisting of commensalism, gastrointestinal disease, or extraintestinal …

The bacterial species definition, despite its eminent practical significance for identification,
diagnosis, quarantine and diversity surveys, remains a very difficult issue to advance …

The earth contains a huge number of largely uncharacterized Bacteria and Archaea.
Microbiologists are struggling to summarize their genetic diversity and classify them, which …

It is a standard practice to test for the signature of homologous recombination in studies
examining the genetic diversity of bacterial populations. Although it has emerged that …

Advancing prokaryotic taxonomy constitutes a contemporary academic challenge as well as
practical necessity. Genome sequencing has greatly facilitated the evaluation of the current …

The nature of species is controversial in biology and philosophy. Biologists disagree on the
definition of the term 'species,'and philosophers disagree over the ontological status of …

The number of species of Bacteria and Archaea (ca 5000) is surprisingly small considering
their early evolution, genetic diversity and residence in all ecosystems. The bacterial species …

The identification of geographical patterns in microbial distributions has begun to challenge
purely ecological explanations of biogeography and the underlying principle of “everything …

The notion that all prokaryotes belong to genomically and phenomically cohesive clusters
that we might legitimately call “species” is a contentious one. At issue are (1) whether such …

Recent discoveries of geographical patterns in microbial distribution are undermining
microbiology's exclusively ecological explanations of biogeography and their fundamental …