Guidelines of the Ad Hoc Committee on Mitigating Changes in Prokaryotic Nomenclature

These are the guidelines issued by the Ad Hoc Committee on Mitigating Changes in Prokaryotic Nomenclature (CoMiCProN). The guidelines are ratified at CoMiCProN meetings.

Mission Statement. CoMiCProN is a subcommittee of the International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes (ICSP) and pursues its objectives in accordance with the International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes (ICNP). For example, to mitigate bacterial name changes, it is important to inform agencies, databases, journal authors, reviewers and editors that most bacterial name changes are not mandatory under the ICNP, although they may be perceived as such. CoMiCProN aims to recognise both the need for taxonomic classification to reflect empirical data and the need to reduce name changes as much as possible. A future goal is to provide specific recommendations for naming in accordance with these principles.