Abstract:
The Bacillus-like bacteria in this paper are defined as a great variety of the Firmicutes bacteria,which belong to the genus Bacillus and related genera in taxonomy and can form endospores with very strong resistance.The Bacillus-like bacteria exist in extremely diverse environment,and they have been widely used in food-stuff,agriculture and forestry,industry,biotechnology,medicine,metallurgy,environmental protection,military and other fields.Therefore,researches on taxonomy of the Bacillus-like bacteria are always very important and fundamental work.With the improvement of experimental techniques and research methods,more and more Bacillus-like species are discovered.However,a large number of new species and genera have not been assigned their corresponding Chinese names.On the other hand,many Bacillus-like species have been changed their taxonomic status and a few Bacillus-like species have been combined with corresponding species due to synonyms.Certainly,these changes cause chaos and confusion for the related researchers in China.According to the recently updated version(2014December)of the‘List of Prokaryotic Names with Standing in Nomenclature'on the LPSN website and‘Berger′s Manual of Systematic Bacteriology,Volume 3:The Firmicutes'(the second edition),753 species of the Bacillus-like bacteria that belong to 5families and 71 genera were listed in this paper.Furthermore,changes in taxonomy of the genus Bacillus and related genera were presented and the Latin names and Chinesenames of each family,genus and species were listed,respectively.Our work would play a certain role in promoting research and application of the Bacillus-like bacteria in China.