Out From the Shadows - Resolution of the Taxonomy of the Family .

The family for many years has been a poorly defined taxonomic group within the order , phylum . Members of the , apparently consisting of multiple-family level clades, have been mostly but not exclusively detected in saline ecosystems. The problems with the taxonomy of this group have stemmed from inadequate resolution of taxonomic groups using 16S rRNA gene sequences, sparse numbers of cultivated taxa, and limited phenotypic distinctiveness. The Genome Tiaxonomc Database (GTDB), which is based on normalized taxonomic ranks includes as containing the genera and . This is at odds with the official taxonomy that places these genera in the family . The other affiliated species have even more uncertain taxonomic positions including . To clarify the taxonomy of , genomes were generated for all type strains of the family lacking such data. The GTDB-toolkit (GTDB-tk) was used to place taxa in the GTDB, which revealed novelty at the family level for some of these type strains. 16S rRNA gene sequences and concatenated protein sequences were used to further evaluate the taxonomy of the order . From the data, the GTDB enabled successful clarification of the taxonomy of the family . A number of placeholder families were given Latinized names. It is proposed that the family is emended to include only the species . The family is emended to account for the expansion of its membership. represents a new family designated fam. nov. is the representative of fam. nov. while represents fam. nov.