The Future of Taxonomy

Microbial systematics is a misunderstood scientifc discipline. it is thought systematists use antiquated techniques to examine the molecular, morphological, physiological, and biochemical properties of micro-organisms. it is also thought that circumscribing novel taxa is not required and because of this, systematics has become a dying art. in truth this discipline is essential to all sciences, without the use of current techniques, descriptions of known and novel taxa cannot be correctly identifed. Since the frst publication on the use of 16S as a molecular tool, phylogenetic analysis of 16S rrNA genes has become an essential technique in microbial systematics. However this technique has limitations and it is becoming more apparent that full genome comparison is required for the full circumscription of novel taxa. The next generation of sequencing technology, is enabling more information to be incorporated into the full systematic picture. However the start of this era has shown that genomic data, via high throughput sequencing will compliment, rather than throwing a different light on the polyphasic data obtained. High-throughput sequencing is a cost effective method of genomic sequencing; however it is still years away from becoming one of the minimal standards.