Prokaryote Nomenclature Statistics


Nomenclature Project Status

At present, the NamesforLife Database (N4LDB) contains 14,650 distinct names, 13,883 of which are validly published, 119 Candidatus, and 47 that are illegitimate but relevant to the field. N4LDB also contains 14,939 exemplars (metadata representations of species/subspecies/strains), 9,461 of which represent distinct type strains for 11,511 taxa and 11,903 names, the remaining exemplars representing important non-type strains. The remaining 2,747 names are associated with higher taxa. The major classes of events that have occurred since publication of the Approved Lists in 1980, by event, are shown below. Less common events (Judicial Opinions, Revived Names, Rejected Names, Retractions, etc.) are not shown here.

N4LDB Records by Rank
RankTaxaNames
Domain22
Phylum3536
Class7576
Subclass77
Order133137
Suborder2425
Family344349
Subfamily11
Genus2,0792,109
Subgenus55
Species10,98011,333
Subspecies531570
Total14,21614,650
Nomenclatural Events Recorded in N4LDB
EventCount
Corrections439
New Combinations1,270
Heterotypic Synonyms321
Homotypic Synonyms163
Unifications102
Automatically created names via rule 40d53
Emendations1,187
Validation List events2,977
Valid Publication (excluding Validation Lists)8,692
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The bacterial nomenclature activity from the Approved Lists through SNAPSHOT_DATE. A total of 33,606 nomenclatural events have been reported in 11,870 distinct references since 1980. (View Chart)

Figure 6a (below left). Cataloging of taxonomic information. GenBank began cataloging taxonomic information found in sequence metadata in 1993. By 2004, the number of Not Validly Published (NVP) names appearing on GenBank records exceeded the number of validly published names and now outnumber Validly Published (VP) names (1.4:1). This adds significantly to the burden of those attempting to use this information for tracking and identification, since it adds an additional 6.8 names/day, none of which have any formal standing in the literature. This divergence is increasing every year at a linear rate.