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Committee on the Taxonomy of Plant Pathogenic
Bacteria
Minutes of the meeting of the ISPP Committee on Taxonomy
of Plant Pathogenic Bacteria held in Charlottetown, Canada, on 27 July
2000.
The Committee met at the 10th International Conference on Plant
Pathogenic Bacteria, Charlottetown, Canada, 23-27 July 2000. S. De Boer,
L. Gardan, D. Stead, and J. Young, as members of the Committee, and 20
members of the conference attended.
1. Meeting convened: 1330h; Chair Dr Solke De Boer
2. Apologies: Received from Dr G.E. Saddler and Dr Y. Takikawa.
3. Committee Report: The committee had not formally convened since
the meeting at the Versailles conference, 1992, there being insufficient
numbers of the existing committee at the meeting in Madras, India, in
1996. In the interim, the committee had prepared a list of names of plant
pathogenic bacteria, 1864-1995 (Young et al. 1996), which is held on the
ISPP website and is upgraded annually. Until recently, the committee was
an ISPP sub-committee but, because of its activities, had ben invited by
the ISPP Executive to become a full committee, which it had accepted.
4. Election of Committee:
Bull, Carolee
De Boer, Solke
Firrao, Giuseppe
Gardan, Louis
Saddler, Gerry
Stead, David
Takikawa, Yuichi
Young, John
Moved: D. Stead Seconded: J.M. Young
Dr Luc Vauterin and Dr Rostislav Gvozdyak were thanked for their
participation on the past committee.
There was discussion as to the need for more structure to the
committee. It was suggested that there was a need to create mobility of
membership. The Committee tries to have representation of taxonomic groups
and to have geographic representation. The Committee did aim to have at
least two new members elected at each meeting. It was noted that the main
problem was to obtain enough people with expertise and enthusiasm to
maintain an effective committee. As far as was known ISPP Committee’s
were not subject to overarching rules. It was agreed that he Convener of
the Committee would check with the ISPP executive to discover if there
were any ISPP guidelines.
5. Letter to Phytopathology: The letter to the editor by Schaad et
al. in Phytopathology 90 (2000) 208-213, supported by the APS Bacteriology
Committee, was discussed. The proposals contained in the letter were the
subject of several dicussion at severla sessions at the conference. The
letter was considered to err in its interpretation of the at least four
Rules of Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria. Contingent upon what had been
written as a response by Vauterin et al. in Phytopathology, (i.e. the
extent to which they explained all relevant points), it was proposed that
the Committee develop a Letter to the Editor for Phytopathology and invite
the original authors to participate in authorship. Also to seek
endorsement of the APS Bacteriology Committee for the letter.
6. ISPP Website: It was proposed that the ISPP Website be expanded
to make it more useful to bacteriologists with interests in taxonomy.
1. To place useful documents on the website apart from the Lists of
Names of Plant Pathogenic Bacteria, such as the Standards for Naming
Pathovars (revised).
2. To create a newsgroup where issues on bacterial taxonomy could be
clarified.
7. US Culture Collection of Plant Pathogenic Bacteria:
Although there are several special purpose collections of plant pathogenic
bacteria around the world, there is none in the United States. This is
regarded as a serious gap in the maintenance of representations of
diversity of these bacteria. It was agreed that the Convener of the
Committee would write to Dr. Roy Gingery, National Program Leader, USDA-REE-ARS-NPS-CPPVS,
GWCC-BLTSVL, 5601 Sunnyside Avenue, Beltsville, MD 20705-5139, USA. Fax:301-504-6191;
urging support for such a collection.
The meeting closed at 1500h
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