Proposed minimal standards for describing new taxa of the family Flavobacteriaceae and emended description of the family.

In this paper minimal standards for the description of new genera and cultivable species in the family Flavobacteriaceae are proposed in accordance with Recommendation 30b of the Bacteriological Code (1990 Revision). In addition to specified phenotypic characteristics, the description of new species should be based on DNA-DNA hybridization data, and the placement of new taxa should be consistent with phylogenetic data derived from 16S rRNA sequencing. An emended description of the family is also proposed as several new taxa have been described since 1996. These proposals have been endorsed by the members of the Subcommittee on the taxonomy of Flavobacterium and Cytophaga-like bacteria of the International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes.