- Volume 69, Issue 5, 2019

Five strains, NUNU 16637, NYNU 16645, NYNU 1673, NYNU 1680 and NYNU 1689, of a novel ascomycetous yeast were isolated from the Xishuangbanna tropical rainforest, Yunnan Province, PR China. The five strains shared identical sequences in both of the D1/D2 domains of the large subunit rRNA gene and the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions. Sequence analysis showed that they represent undescribed yeast species belonging to the genus Wickerhamomyces. They differed from their closest known species, Wickerhamomyces xylosivorus NBRC 111553T, by 3.4 % sequence divergence (14 substitutions and six gaps out of 584 bp) in the D1/D2 domains and by 9.6 % sequence divergence (28 substitutions and 24 gaps over 543 bp) in the ITS regions, respectively. The five strains of novel species reproduced asexually; no sexual reproduction could be found. In contrast to W. xylosivorus, the novel yeast species were able to assimilate l-arabinose, inulin, soluble starch, d-mannitol and citrate, and unable to assimilate trehalose, raffinose, 5-keto-d-gluconate, d-gluconate, ethanol, ethylamine and cadaverine. Growth was observed at 35 °C. The name Wickerhamomyces menglaensis f.a., sp. nov. is proposed to accommodate these strains, with NYNU 1673 as the holotype.

The wording of Rule 40d was discussed at the XIIth International (IUMS) Congress of Bacteriology and Applied Microbiology, Istanbul in 2008 and some changes were made to clarify how the authorship of names covered by this rule were to be cited. However, a key topic that was raised and discussed was the issue of wording that either automatically creates a subspecies name or whether an automatic consequence of the rule was that a subspecies name based on the nomenclatural type of the corresponding species was required, but must be validly published in accordance with the Rules of the International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes. The differences are subtle, but important.

The meeting of International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes, Subcommittee on the taxonomy of Bifidobacterium , Lactobacillus and related organisms was held within the frame of the FoodMicro 2018 Congress (FoodMicro 2018, 3–6 September 2018, Berlin, Germany). The meeting comprised an open session with a workshop entitled ‘Modern approaches of LAB identification and conservation’ and a closed session on issues related to ICSP Subcommittee activities.

Although the taxonomic categories covered by the International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes include the ranks of Subtribe (Subtribus) and Subfamily (Subfamilia), no names of taxa belonging to these ranks have been validly published. To simplify the Rules of the Code I propose abolishing these ranks. The rank of Kingdom is mentioned once in the Code, in an example to Rule 8, but it is not further defined. Therefore, I propose modifying that example so that the rank of Kingdom is no longer mentioned in the Code.

Recently a proposal was published to unify Rules 7, 8 and 9 of the International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes. Based on this proposal, all names of taxa above the rank of genus must be in the feminine gender, the plural number. For the rank of class, this proposal contravenes Principle 3 of the Code, which states that the scientific names of all taxa are treated as Latin. The –ia ending of most names of classes belongs to nominative plural nouns of the neuter gender.