This article is missing information about 2021 renames with "-ota" suffix due to ICNP update. See NCBI description (has link to the 42 new "validly published" names); analogous 2023 renames of Candidatus phyla in doi:10.1099/ijsem.0.005821. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page.(December 2021)
Phyla or divisions of the domain Bacteria
Bacterial phyla constitute the major lineages of the domain Bacteria. While the exact definition of a bacterial phylum is debated, a popular definition is that a bacterial phylum is a monophyletic lineage of bacteria whose 16S rRNA genes share a pairwise sequence identity of ~75% or less with those of the members of other bacterial phyla.[2]
It has been estimated that ~1,300 bacterial phyla exist.[2] As of May 2020, 41 bacterial phyla are formally accepted by the LPSN,[3] 89 bacterial phyla are recognized on the Silva database, dozens more have been proposed,[4][5] and hundreds likely remain to be discovered.[2] As of 2017, approximately 72% of widely recognized bacterial phyla were candidate phyla[6] (i.e. have no cultured representatives).
^Hug, Laura A.; Baker, Brett J.; Anantharaman, Karthik; Brown, Christopher T.; Probst, Alexander J.; Castelle, Cindy J.; Butterfield, Cristina N.; Hernsdorf, Alex W.; Amano, Yuki; Ise, Kotaro; Suzuki, Yohey (11 April 2016). "A new view of the tree of life". Nature Microbiology. 1 (5): 16048. doi:10.1038/nmicrobiol.2016.48. ISSN2058-5276. PMID27572647.