Request for public discussion and ballot to add rules on paratypes to the SeqCode and amend recommendations on name formation

The “Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes Described from Sequence Data” (the SeqCode) was conceived and introduced to address the need to validly publish names for taxa known from sequence data [1, 2]. While the SeqCode provides a valuable mechanism for validly publishing names for taxa known from sequence data, a concern is that it insufficiently acknowledges the importance of cultivated strains in the description of species and subspecies. While genome sequences allow the unambiguous identification of species, examination of cultures in the laboratory is often critical for understanding the properties of species and greatly enhances their descriptions. Therefore, an amendment to the SeqCode is proposed to provide formal recognition of strains that add to the species or subspecies descriptions as paratypes. Paratypes may be denoted by the original authors of the description or subsequent authors and must be deposited in at least one publicly accessible culture collection. Crucially, a paratype does not replace the type, which is a DNA sequence. In addition, amendments are proposed to reduce the recommended number of unique letters in a name from three to two and add to Recommendation 28 regarding citation of the effective publication of a new taxon.