TY - JOUR UR - https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26824v1 DO - 10.7287/peerj.preprints.26824v1 TI - Taxonomic annotation errors incorrectly assign the family Pseudoalteromonadaceae to the order Vibrionales in Greengenes: Implications for microbial community assessments AU - Lydon,Keri A AU - Lipp,Erin K DA - 2018/04/04 PY - 2018 KW - Greengenes KW - Taxonomy KW - 16S rRNA gene KW - next-generation sequencing KW - microbial ecology KW - Alteromonadales KW - Vibrionales KW - Pseudoalteromonadaceae KW - Vibrionaceae KW - marine microbiology AB - Next-generation sequencing has provided powerful tools to conduct microbial ecology studies. Analysis of community composition relies on annotated databases of curated sequences to provide taxonomic assignments; however, these databases occasionally have errors with implications for downstream analyses. Systemic taxonomic errors were discovered in Greengenes database (v13_5 and 13_8) related to orders Vibrionales and Alteromonadales. These orders have family level annotations that were erroneous at least one taxonomic level, e.g., 100% of sequences assigned to the Pseudoalteromonadaceae family were placed improperly in Vibrionales (rather than Alteromonadales) and >20% of these sequences were assigned to the Pseudoalteromonadaceae family (rather than to Vibrionaceae). Use of this database is common; we identified 67 peer-reviewed papers since 2013 that likely included erroneous annotations, with 20 explicitly stating the incorrect taxonomy. Erroneous assignments using these specific versions of Greengenes can lead to incorrect conclusions, especially in marine systems where these taxa can be common. VL - 6 SP - e26824v1 T2 - PeerJ Preprints JO - PeerJ Preprints J2 - PeerJ Preprints SN - 2167-9843 ER -