The asexual genus name Pyricularia has been used for the rice blast
fungus since 1892. Based on
morphological similarity, the sexual state of the rice blast fungus was
believed to belong to Magnaporthe,
and was named as Magnaporthe oryzae
in 2002. However, recent
phylogenetic analyses from different labs all demonstrated that the rice blast
fungus does not belong to Magnaporthe. Therefore, a name change is
needed. The new fungal nomenclature
requires One Name for One Fungus, and the asexual state names are now treated
equally as the sexual state names.
As the oldest and legitimate generic name for the rice blast fungus, Pyricularia has the priority. However, because this fungus is a
widely used model system and has large impacts, researchers from all over the
world have been discussing this name issue since April 2012 in the CBS One
Fungus, Which Name symposium at Amsterdam. The most recent discuss was at the Asilomar Fungal Genetics
Conference in March 2013. A
summary of the reasons for using Pyricularia
vs. Magnaporthe is listed below.
Reasons to use Pyricularia
oryzae:
1.
The types
species of Magnaporthe is Magnaporthe salvinii, the rice stem rot
fungus, which is phylogenetically distantly related to the rice blast
fungus.
2.
The rice blast
fungus was first named as Pyricularia,
about 100 years earlier than Magnaporthe. So Pyricularia
has nomenclatural priority.
3.
Conserving Magnaporthe oryzae for the rice blast
fungus is a rather unusual process, which requires a change of the type for the
genus Magnaporthe.
4.
Only two Magnaporthe species (M. oryzae and M. grisea) will need to be changed to Pyricularia. But over
70 Pyricularia names may need to be
changed if we use Magnaporthe for the
rice blast fungus.
Reasons to use Magnaporthe
oryzae:
1.
To minimize
the name change for important pathogens and quarantine issues.
2. Funding agents may not recognize Pyricularia oryzae.
3. Some geneticists used Magnaporthe oryzae to name the genes (e.g. MoXXX).
4. Another option is to adopt a very broad generic
concept of Magnaporthe, which
includes Pyricularia, Gaeumannomyces, Buergenerula and Magnaporthe.
No doubt, 'Pyricularia oryzae' is the proper name for rice blast fungus. Because the 'pyriform' conidial fungus has not changed yet since it was described by Cavara in 1892. Only the name has been changing; from P. oryzae to P. grisea/Magnaporthe grisea, and later from Pyricularia oryzae to Magnaporthe oryzae. It is P. oryzae, the asexual state, which causes rice disease in the field, greenhouse or laboratory. M. oryzae, the sexual state, is very rare in lab and yet to found in nature. I am sure most of the people working with rice blast fungus have not seen M. grisea. They are working all the time with P. oryzae. Then why Magnaporthe, not Pyricularia?
ReplyDeleteIn the 6th IRBC at Jeju in Korea, some people asked scientific reasons for changing the name from Magnaporthe to Pyricularia. The reasons posted by Dr. Ning Zhang are more than enough to use P. oryzae. Furthermore, science believes in seeing. What we are seeing all the time is P. oryzae, not M. oryzae. In the disease cycle of the rice blast, it is P. oryzae which initiates the disease and it is again P. oryzae which ends as further inoculums for the disease. There is no obligatory intervention of M. oryzae in the disease cycle to be completed.
Some people at the 6th IRBC suggested that we should wait for some more time to find the truth before we change the name. Here, we are not changing the name. We are retaining the name which has been used for nearly one and quarter century. The name P. oryzae is still very much in use even though it was decided in 2002 to use the name M. oryzae (instead of P. oryzae). I did a very limited two-hour survey in the net for those published in 2013 only and found that the number of publications with P. oryzae was more than 60 (as of August 23). This is quite a high number and the reason is obvious to everyone.
It was said during the one and half hour long session of 'which name for the rice blast fungus, Pyricularia or Magnaporthe?' at the 6th IRBC that publications on rice blast with Magnaporthe are 10 times more than with Pyricularia. The claimed number must have been based on net survey. I am sure all the publications from 1892 have not been digitalized and documented yet in the net. What I believe is that if we count all the publications from 1892 Pyricularia will outnumber Magnaporthe in many folds.
As posted in the net the reasons for maintaining M. oryzae include (i) recognition by funding agents, (ii) quarantine issues, (iii) naming of genes using M. oryzae, and (iv) an option to adopt a very broad generic concept. Funding agents are concerned with the disease, not with the name of the disease causing organism. If the disease is of economic significance no matter what the name is. I don't think most of the funding agents know about Magnaporthe or Pyricularia unless the person-in-charge of the funding agents is of plant pathological/agricultural background. Similarly, if Magnaporthe is considered as quarantine organism Pyricularia should be treated the same way, because of its high pathogenic variations and also because of possible mating types, if any. So, whether it is Magnaporthe or Pyricularia quarantine organism is quarantine organism. So far the naming of genes are concerned, not only MoXXX but a number of Pi-genes have been in use for many years. The option to adopt a very broad generic concept may not be practical/acceptable from genetic and taxonomic point of view.
So, I do plead the global community of rice blast researchers and plant pathologists to vote for Pyricularia oryzae as the proper name for rice blast fungus.
Hira Kaji Manandhar
Nepal Agricultural Research Council
Nepal
Dear Ning,
ReplyDeleteI thought the vote at the IRBC was overwhelming to keep Magnaporthe oryzae. The rice blast community voted to keep that name. Does the community have the final say with this new ‘one fungus one name’ rule?
Regarding the comment on following rice blast researches, there are more and more journals and everybody is busy doing something. Many people these days scan the titles of papers in scientific journals before reading the abstracts or entire papers. The molecular or young generations of non-rice-blast plant pathologists may only know Magnaporthe as they were taught. Therefore, it is likely they will skip the Pyricularia papers if they have never heard about it.
To me, it does not sound good that we keep changing the name of the rice blast fungus (The Latin name is not as ‘consistent’ or ‘accurate’ as the common name). In 2003, I asked this question after Linda published her Mycologia paper in 2002: ‘Do we change the name of this model fungus every 10 years?’ In 2013, we are discussing the same topic again.
Now, I am afraid, in near future, somebody may propose to split M. oryzae into multiple species or cryptic species, like what Kerry O’Donnell did for Fusarium graminearum. About two weeks ago, I heard a presentation by John Taylor. They sequenced a number of Neurospora isolates. Some strains appear to be adapted to different temperatures and have related genomic features. Are they different species? John posted that question at the meeting as a joke.
What is in a name? What is a species? I guess we may have different opinions. So it is good to have the community working with this pathogen to vote and pick the name. Thanks.
Regards,
Jin-Rong
*****************************************
Jin-Rong Xu, Ph.D.
Professor of Fungal Biology
Dept. of Botany and Plant Pathology
Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN47907
Tel: 765-496-6918
Fax: 765-494-5896
http://www3.ag.purdue.edu/btny/pages/jinrong.aspx
*****************************************
Dear All,
ReplyDeleteMagnaporthe or Pyricularia? ----- This is not a matter of preference, convenience, funding, etc., but now an issue of science.
If the range of Magnaporthe spp. would correspond to that of Pyricularia spp., the genus name to be used from now on may be determined by preference; e.g. which is widely used, which is convenient from the viewpoint of getting funds, quarantine, etc. In fact, however,
- Magnaporthe spp. are sporadically distributed in Magnaporthaceae.
- The type species of Magnaporthe (M. salvinii) does not appear to belong to the same genus as the blast fungi, phylogenetically nor morphologically.
- Gaeumannomyces spp. are intermingled with Magnaporthe spp.
The key question is whether M. salvinii and the blast fungi can be classified into the same genus. The phylogenetic studies by Zhang et al. (2011) and Murata et al. (2013) clearly indicate that they should be classified into different genera.
Once one admit that M. salvinii and the blast fungi belong to different genera, then adopting Magnaporthe as a generic name of the blast fungi must be accompanied by transferring its type species to some blast fungus. Who will do it?
When the type species is successfully transferred, then what is the new name of Magnaporthe salvinii? What is the new name of Magnaporthe poae, Magnaporthe rhizophila etc? How should Gaeumannomyces be treated?
All these are problems caused by adopting Magnaporthe as a generic name of the blast fungi, if the Magnaporthe committee determines to do so. Therefore, the Magnaporthe committee cannot say to researchers on Magnaporthe poae, M. rhizophila, Gaeumannomyces spp. etc., "I do not care about them. Please do it as you want." Dr. Zhang made a proposal on these points. If the Magnaporthe committee wants to adopt Magnaporthe for the blast fungi, it also has to make a proposal on these points.
The issue of Magnaporthe/Pyricularia cannot be solved without answering the basic question "what is a genus". This should not be discussed only by molecular biologists working on the blast fungi. Researchers on Gaeumannomyces, Magnaporthe salvinii, etc. and taxonomists should be invited to this discussion.
I myself think that a simple solution of these problems is to adopt Pyricularia as a generic name of the blast fungi. This is not a change of the name, but just a return to the original name. P. oryzae has long been used for the rice blast fungus. At least in Japan students have learned both names, and therefore, there is no concern that they will skip Pyricularia papers.
Sincerely,
**********************************
Yukio TOSA
Graduate School of Agricultural Science
Kobe University
Nada, Kobe 657-8501, JAPAN
TEL: 078-803-6544/6540
**********************************
Dear all,
ReplyDeleteI am strongly in favour of retaining the name Magnaporthe oryzae for the rice blast fungus and altering the type species accordingly to resolve the taxonomic conflict. I accept that there is a need to revise the taxonomic classification of the whole group based on recent studies.
However, it is worth remembering that we very recently changed the name of the rice blast fungus from Magnaporthe grisea to Magnaporthe oryzae based on similar advice, even when a relatively simple re-classification of Digitaria-infecting isolates of Magnaporthe would have sufficed to leave all the other host limited forms of the fungus within Magnaporthe grisea. This name change of just the species name has caused huge confusion and I still receive messages from confused students following the literature, who believe that different organisms are being studied, in studies of the same genes from different laboratories published in the 1990s or mid-2000s. Creating avoidable obstacles to scientific understanding is not something we should aim to do.
I believe that a change of genus name would generate even greater confusion. Due to the large efforts of many laboratories world wide, the rice blast literature is now read across the plant pathology world and also influences thinking in basic fungal developmental biology, cell biology, genetics and genomics communities. The community has come a long way in the last 20 years and there is a huge body of literature on Magnaporthe. The name is known widely in biology departments as the most important fungal model system for studying host pathogen interactions. It was recently voted as such by a plant pathology journal, as you will know. Magnaporthe was the first fungal pathogen of plants to be sequenced and is one of the most advanced systems for studying pathogenesis. Many of the most highly cited papers in plant pathology are related to this organism with its current name.
Biologists who study major model organisms tend to resist name changes in order to maintain clarity of the literature and integrity of the research field. Think of Drosophila, Escherichia, Saccharomyes and other major models. All have, in fact, been subject to taxonomic controversies but have resisted change for the sake of clarity of the literature and scientific understanding of underlying biology. There are many, many other examples even closer to home, such as Aspergillus and Cladosporium.
Could we cope with a name change to Pyricularia? Yes, probably. The literature would adapt in time, but it would probably take 10-15 years to become firmly embedded and the literature record to self-correct. In the meantime we would confuse a generation of graduate students, who we want to attract to work on this fungus, we would confuse journals in which we publish, many of which are not strictly plant pathology journals, and we would confuse funding agencies who support our work, where we have built up reputations as a community. Most importantly, we would confuse the readership of our work, many of whom are not plant pathologists at all, or even fungal biologists. In short, we would confuse a lot of people for a long time and diminish the reputation of our research community in the eyes of the wider world. Do we want to do this?
Furthermore, who is to say there will not be another recommendation to change the genus name in the intervening period? A stable nomenclature is not in the interests of taxonomists is it? What would they do? Will we receive a firm undertaking that there will be no further name changes for the organism for 20 years, or 50 years? I think not.
ReplyDeleteSo I remain committed to retaining the name Magnaporthe in the interests of biology and of scientific understanding. The taxonomic integrity of the group can be accommodated while retaining the genus name. It can all be easily resolved. Names are human creations that are created to further understanding and increase clarity.
I hope that common sense prevails and people vote accordingly.
Sincerely
Nick Talbot
Professor Nicholas J . Talbot
School of Biosciences,
University of Exeter
United Kingdom
Hi All,
ReplyDeleteFrom my side, I could not get access to the Blog! I tried many times. It is a pity. But, it means almost nothing to vote outside the community on BLog system. This is not for serious science issues.
However, the votes from Committee and IRBC6 reflected the idea from the community. Almost 30 Chinese PIs and next generation PIs ( Post Doc and PhD) attended IRBC6 and voted. So I believe the votes from IRBC6 also reflected idea from Chinese Rice Blast Community.
I voted for Magnaporthe. And suggested the taxonomists to amend the type species.
Yours sincerely,
Zonghua
--
Yours sincerely,
Zonghua
********************************
Zonghua Wang Ph.D.
Professor of Plant Pathology & Molecular Genetics
Vice President
Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University
Fuzhou, 350002
Tel:86-591-83789202,13706948783
Fax:86-591-83768251
***********************************
Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University (FAFU) is accredited as the
leading higher education institution in Fujian Province, jointly
supported by the Ministry of Agriculture, the State
Forestry Administration and Fujian Provincial People's Government. It
is also one of the higher education institutions with Chinese
Government Scholarship Programs to sponsor international students.....
Learn more @
http://www.fafu.edu.cn/en/
Hi All,
ReplyDeleteSorry I could not attend the IRBC meeting and hear the discussion. A similar discussion was held at the Fungal Genetics Conference in March with a number of attendees.
While I agree that all voices should be heard, I also agree that this should not be a popularity contest and so should be decided by a sub-group considering the science. It is fine to take into consideration votes by those with an interest in the decision, but it seems impossible to make that a vote that includes all who might want to have a say. I don't believe that is the approach that has been taken by other communities.
I have not voted yet as a member of the policy committee, nor at the meeting.
While I appreciate the concern about what structures are observed in the field, I would point out that you are not seeing Pyricularia or Magnaporthe in the field, you are seeing a stage in the life cycle of the fungus.
As someone who is teaching introductory Mycology at the moment, it has been a challenge to teach students about the different names of the same fungus, and it is going to continue to be a challenge as many are renamed.
My vote would be for Magnaporthe because of the vast literature that has developed for this fungus over the last 25+ years and the vast recognition of the fungus by that name among grant agencies and regulatory agencies.
I am sure these discussions were voiced at the IRBC, so I won't further detail them.
Marc
--------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Marc Orbach
Professor of Plant Pathology & Microbiology
School of Plant Sciences
P.O. Box 210036
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721-0036
Dear All
ReplyDeleteI fully support Didier, Jin-rong, Guo-Liang, Naweed, Mark (Orbach), Zonghua, Ralph and Nick comments (as well as the short notice of Mark Farman)
We need to keep the name Magnaporthe oryzae/grisea
to have this pathosystem staying an easily recognizable
model for studying plant microbe interactions (from genes to field)
thanks to the effort of all our scientific community
All the best
MH
Le 11/09/2013 16:02, Ralph Dean a écrit :
Dear All, after reading through the comments above, there is clearly passion on all sides of this issue. However, we have worked diligently as a community to rise the visibility of rice blast to the point where the fungus is broadly recognized on a global scale well beyond those of us who are intimately familiar with this organism and the disease, which includes important individuals who make major funding decisions and recommendations about accepting work for publication in top tier journals. These individuals recognize the name Magnaporthe and changing the name would seriously jeopardize the high standing of our organism. Magnaporthe is now our trademark, our brand name. Other communities working on high visibility model organisms, as pointed out by Nick, have stuck with what they know will ensure not risk loosing this high status.
Ralph
Dear All,
ReplyDeleteI have not heard yet from anyone in the discussion that Pyricularia is wrong name for the rice blast fungus and Magnaporthe is correct name. What I am hearing is the big people are not in favor of changing the name from Magnaporthe to Pyricularia or they are strongly in favor of retaining the name Magnaporthe. What they are saying as I understand (I may have misunderstood and in that case please disregard my view) is that Magnaporthe is a 'used-to-name' for funding agents, big journals and young generations, and Magnaporthe has been used in many publications for the last 20 years or so.
I believe in science. I believe science makes money. But I had no idea science runs after money. I thought money runs after science. I believe science creates business. But I had no idea how scientists can act as businessmen. That's why we scientists now are happy with our trade mark and our brand name and we would like to keep them at any cost.
I have no idea how many people have seen ascospores of Magnaporthe oryzae causing blast disease in rice plants. I have never seen. (I am not saying here what I see is only science.) What I have seen is conidia of Pyricularia oryzae causing the disease in growth room, greenhouse and fields at large. So, to me, Pyricularia oryzae is the name of the rice blast fungus. If P.A. Saccardo in 1880 had described the genus of the fungus as Magnaporthe or something else instead of Pyricularia I would have no choice other than Magnaporthe or something else what Saccardo would have chosen that time.
I agree that frequent changes in names would create confusion. That is what is happening now. If the name had not been changed in 2002, this confusion would not have been there. Now our superpowers (big names in the rice blast industry) are dictating to retain the name in the name of avoiding confusion. I think, by doing so, we are going to create much more confusion to our future generations to come. Now we are talking of 20 year use, after 10 years it will be of 30 years, after 30 years it will be 50 years and so on. If we are concerned about 20 year-use of Magnaporthe, what about 121 year-use of Pyricularia?
All names are human creation. The word 'name' itself is human creation, the word 'creation' is human creation, and even the word 'human' is human creation. Here, creation is important. That is how we humans are acting as super beings in this earth. Creation should be maintained and preserved unless it is proved wrong. A name is always created with some meaning and value. If we keep on changing names for own sake, what is left for creation then? The name 'Pyricularia' was created in the 19th century and that perfectly coincides with 'pyriform' shape of the conidia, now we are in the 21st century. Don't we have any obligation to our fore-scientists for their contributions? Why should we erase their contributions unless they are proved wrong? I am reiterating – 'original is original' unless it is proved wrong.
[Out of subject but not out of context, I would like to bring here a couple of examples of changing names of places. During the British colonization time, Kolkata was changed to Calcutta, now it is again Kolkata. During Soviet era St. Petersberg was changed to Leningrad, now it is again St. Petersberg. There are many other examples. I don't think the cities with original names are suffering from funds or losing their identities or being confused their young generations.]
Hira Kaji Manandhar
Hi Everyone,
ReplyDeleteIt has been great to read all the comments and the update of what went on at the meeting. It just shows how much everyone really cares about this organism and field of study.
Last spring, when we had a workshop covering this at the FGB/Asilomar meeting, I did email some USDA NPLs. Dr. Lichens-Park emailed some colleagues there to ask whether they'd heard of Pyricularia. They said, "What is that?" (I'm paraphrasing, but that is the gist). Now, does this mean they will not know what we are working on if we say in our Introductions, Pyricularia oryzae (formerly Magnaporthe oryzae)? No, not necessarily. But I am on the same page as Jin-Rong, Nick, Ralph and others. As Jin-Rong pointed out, it will take some time (years? in the very least, months) for the name change to really take hold. Jin-Rong said that people might skip "Pyricularia" in the literature, and I agree with this. This might seem a small thing, but for those of us still relying on things like downloads and impact factors for promotion, it will be important.
It is a very interesting email conversation!
Many thanks,
Nicole
Dear All,
ReplyDeleteI have not heard yet from anyone in the discussion that Pyricularia is wrong name for the rice blast fungus and Magnaporthe is correct name. What I am hearing is that the big people are not in favor of changing the name from Magnaporthe to Pyricularia or they are strongly in favor of retaining the name Magnaporthe. What they are saying as I understand (I may have misunderstood and in that case please disregard my view) is that Magnaporthe is a 'used-to-name' for funding agents, big journals and young generations, and Magnaporthe has been used in many publications for the last 20 years or so.
I believe in science. I believe science makes money. But I had no idea science runs after money. I thought money runs after science. I believe science creates business. But I had no idea how scientists can act as businessmen. That's why we scientists now are happy with our trade mark and our brand name and we would like to keep them at any cost.
I have no idea how many people have seen ascospores of Magnaporthe oryzae causing blast disease in rice plants. I have never seen. (I am not saying here what I see is only science.) What I have seen is conidia of Pyricularia oryzae causing the disease in growth room, greenhouse and fields at large. So, to me, Pyricularia oryzae is the name of the rice blast fungus. If P.A. Saccardo in 1880 had described the genus of the fungus as Magnaporthe or something else instead of Pyricularia I would have no choice other than Magnaporthe or something else what Saccardo would have chosen that time.
I agree that frequent changes in names would create confusion. That is what is happening now. If the name had not been changed in 2002, this confusion would not have been there. Now our superpowers (big names in the rice blast industry) are dictating to retain the name in the name of avoiding confusion. I think, by doing so, we are going to create much more confusion to our future generations to come. Now we are talking of 20 year use, after 10 years it will be of 30 years, after 30 years it will be 50 years and so on. If we are concerned about 20 year-use of Magnaporthe, what about 121 year-use of Pyricularia?
All names are human creation. The word 'name' itself is human creation, the word 'creation' is human creation, and even the word 'human' is human creation. Here, creation is important. That is how we humans are acting as super beings in this earth. Creation should be maintained and preserved unless it is proved wrong. A name is always created with some meaning and value. If we keep on changing names for own sake, what is left for creation then? The name 'Pyricularia' was created in the 19th century and that perfectly coincides with 'pyriform' shape of the conidia, now we are in the 21st century. Don't we have any obligation to our fore-scientists for their contributions? Why should we erase their contributions unless they are proved wrong? I am reiterating – 'original is original' unless it is proved wrong.
[Out of subject but not out of context, I would like to bring here a couple of examples of changing names of places. During the British colonization time, Kolkata was changed to Calcutta, now it is again Kolkata. During Soviet era St. Petersberg was changed to Leningrad, now it is again St. Petersberg. There are many other examples. I don't think the cities with original names are suffering from funds or losing their identities or being confused their young generations.]
Best regards.
Hira Kaji Manandhar
Hi Everyone,
ReplyDeleteThe majority of members of the rice blast molecular genetics community has clearly chosen Magnaporthe. I fully understand and agree with the rationale that losing the name Magnaporthe will hurt the status of the blast fungus as most important fungal model system for studying host pathogen interactions, which many of us have worked so hard to establish. As Nick pointed out, Magnaporthe is well known to plant scientists, and others, even beyond the plant pathology community, and this is really important for continued success of our molecular genetics community in today’s highly competitive environment. I get this and I will ultimately support Magnaporthe.
However, the rice blast community is larger than the molecular genetics community and, with his email, Hira was just trying to make folks in the applied disease control area aware that this discussion is going on. Hira and a few others at the blast congress represented members of this more applied community, many of whom never attend the IRBC. These are the folks that still use Pyricularia and losing the name Pyricularia would be a big deal to them. I’ll bet most of these folks have never heard of the Rice Blast Genetics Policy Committee. I don’t think that Hira should be made to feel bad for his email aimed at making these folks aware of the discussion. They belong to the rice blast community as well.
The science of the issue was spelled out in presentations by Izumi Chuma (for Pyricularia) and Marc-Henri Lebrun (for Magnaporthe) at the IRBC. To me so far, it is not a scientifically clear-cut case. As I understand it, the type of information/arguments contained in these presentations will be required in a formal proposal to the nomenclature committee. There was a request that these presentations be made available on the blog. Is there an obstacle to making this happen?
So how do we involve the whole community in a discussion of this significance in a manner that will have everyone pull together and accept the majority decision, even if they do not agree with it? How do we avoid losing the connection between molecular genetic studies in the laboratory and field work/field biology that should inform and motivate the laboratory studies? How do we keep our community from fracturing between the more basic and applied scientists? To me, these are big, important questions.
What I fear is that the molecular and applied communities will become separated by this issue and we will lose a strength of the rice blast model system, the continuum from applied to fundamental research that could, we hope, ultimately solve a major food security problem in the world.
The name Pyricularia has an emotional pull for many people, including myself, and that is why this has become an emotional conversation. I agree with folks who say that we should not lightly erase the century-old name Pyricularia from the rice blast fungus. We have also not included researchers on Magnaporthe poae, M. rhizophila, Gaeumannomyces spp. etc., as pointed out by Yukio Tosa. I don’t know how many researchers there are in these communities, but shouldn’t they have a chance to express their opinions? It is also my understanding that in order to adopt Magnaporthe for the blast fungus, we must make a proposal on what to do with all the other Magnaporthe species.
ReplyDeleteI would prefer that we be exempted from the ‘One fungus-one name’ rule so that we could continue with both names. Since that is not going to happen, we need to get past the emotion (on both the Magnaporthe and Pyricularia sides!) and move forward in a way that makes sense and does not fracture our community.
I was glad to hear from Ning that we have time. To me, a legitimate vote is required, since we asked for community preference. Everyone with a preference should feel that they have been heard, and no one should be made to feel bad for their preference. I’m not saying this vote alone determines the outcome, because we need to consider multiple factors, as we have been doing, in the ultimate decision, and then we need to explain our case really well. The whole community vote would be one factor considered together with the Policy Committee and IRBC votes.
According to Pedro’s email from September 14, ‘As both names are being used on a regular basis, a proposal will have to be submitted to the Nomenclature Committee for Fungi (NCF), and they will have to make a final decision, based on solid data.’ Therefore, we must put together a well-reasoned, scientifically-supported proposal that will be accepted by the NCF.
Best, Barbara
Dear Dr. Barbara,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your summary of the whole discussion. It's very much clear and looking forward approach. Also, thanks for your concern towards my feelings. I am enjoying the discussion very much.
To me, the issue between Pyricularia and Magnaporthe is not complicated. The issue was there initially because of the taxonomic rule preferring the name of sexual stage. So, people started using Magnaporthe as well. That was going fine, both the names side by side. Now, the 'one fungus, one name' initiative has brought back the issue again. As I understand the problem is not the 'taxonomic rule' now (as the rice blast community can propose an appropriate name with scientific reasons and get approval from the taxonomic committee), but what the name should be, Pyricularia or Magnaporthe?
The 'Pyricularia' is the genus name which has been in existence for over 133 years since P.A. Saccardo first described it in 1880. The 'Magnaporthe' is the genus name described in 1972 by R.A. Krause and R.K. Webster. So, Pyricularia is 92 years older than Magnaporthe.
Comparing these two names with each other for their appropriateness at the present context, Pyricularia does not have any controversy. The name perfectly matches with the 'pyriform' conidium, the one and only infective stage of the fungus. And it holds the greatest significance as the name has been used for the rice blast fungus. The fungus is so important because it causes the destructive disease in rice crop, the crop on which one fifth of the world population (more than a billion people) depend for their livelihoods. That was the only reason why scientists have been receiving huge funds to work on the fungus and they have been successful to develop it as a model plant pathogen as well. That's the best part of it and they deserve big congratulations. It's not that the scientists have been successful because they use the name Magnaporthe instead of Pyricularia.
Unlike Pyricularia, Magnaporthe is not free from controversy. Magnaporthe spores have been produced in laboratories and yet to found in nature. Its role in disease cycle has not been established yet. Also, the latest phylogenetic findings have clearly shown that Magnaporthe oryzae is distantly related with Magnaporthe salvinni, which was first described as the first type species of Magnaporthe by Krause and Webster in 1972. So, there is now question over the Magnaporthe as the name of rice blast fungus.
Now, if we are going to stick on 'one fungus, one name' initiative the best option is 'Pyricularia'. That should be used as the 'whole' name for rice blast fungus, both asexual and sexual stages. That will erase all the confusion. I know that is not so easy as we are divided.
Another option is - let's forget about 'one fungus, one name'. Keep both the names as anamorph and teleomorph states. No problem, even if the teleomorph state gets new name based on phylogenetic results. And we know for sure that the anamorph name is not going to change. I believe the rules can be exempted for exceptional cases like rice blast, and even the rule can be changed, if necessary.
Best regards.
Hira Kaji Manandhar