ICNB redirects here. For the Portuguese government agency, see Institute for Nature Conservation and Biodiversity.

The International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria (ICNB) or Bacteriological Code (BC) governs the scientific names for bacteria, including Archaea ^[1]. It denotes the rules for naming taxa of bacteria, according to their relative rank. As such it is one of the Nomenclature Codes of biology.

Originally the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature dealt with bacteria, and this kept references to bacteria until these were eliminated at the 1975 IBC. An early Code for the nomenclature of Bacteria was approved at the 4th International Congress for Microbiology in 1947, but was later discarded.

The latest version to be printed in book form is the 1990 Revision (which may be referred to as the Bacteriological Code (1990 Revision), but the book does not represent the current rules, as the Code has been amended since. The rules are maintained by the International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes (ICSP; formerly the International Committee on Systematic Bacteriology, ICSB).

The base-line for bacterial names are the Approved Lists (1980), which may not be added to. New bacterial names are reviewed by the ICSP as being in conformity with the Rules of Nomenclature and published in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology (IJSEM).

[edit] See also

• International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses
• Society for General Microbiology

[edit] External links

• International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria (1990 Revision)
• International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology Online
• HTML Tindall, B.J. (1999). Misunderstanding the Bacteriological Code Int J Syst Bacteriol. 49, 1313-1316. PMID 10425796. (HTML) or PDF
• A short history of the Bacteriological Code
• List of Prokaryotic Names with Standing in Nomenclature
• Approved Lists of Bacterial Names

[edit] References