TAXONOMIC NOTE - THE POTENTIAL OF DEAD BACTERIAL SPECIMENS FOR SYSTEMATIC STUDIES

Consideration should be given to preserving nonliving bacterial specim ens as dried material in herbaria for use in future systematic studies . Nucleic acid sequences can be recovered from such material, and it m ay be possible to utilize it in other techniques. Dried specimens are cheap to prepare and preserve and would record much bacterial variatio n without the expense of maintaining living cultures. They would also be useful for uncultivable microorganisms. Some technical suggestions are offered.