Bergey's Manual offers a comprehensive overview of prokaryotic taxa recognized in the literature, characterized through traditional cultural techniques and, more recently, through metagenomics. The primary focus of Bergey's Manual chapters should be to summarise the accumulated knowledge for each taxon, covering its current classification, metabolism, ecology, and other relevant features of interest. This page provides essential information for authors preparing chapters. To assist authors in preparing new chapters, we have created downloadable templates that ensure consistency and high-quality content.

Why Use These Templates?
Our templates assist authors in effectively structuring their chapters. They cover essential information, including formatting, style, cross-references, and permissions for reusing previously published materials, all while avoiding redundancy. All templates are provided at the bottom of this page. Please consider the templates as guides and delete sections that are not relevant to your taxon or add sections to include important information.

What Do the Templates Include?
In addition to general publishing guidelines, the templates include examples of descriptions for both lower and higher taxa. When dealing with taxa that have a high number of subcategories, consider offering a general overview of phylogeny and ecology based on the authors' research and other relevant literature.

Higher Taxa Chapters:
These describe taxa from above the genus level up to the phylum. We encourage contributions on underrepresented phyla.

Lower Taxa Chapters:
To prevent redundancy, Bergey's Manual does not publish species chapters. Please focus on the genus rank and above and provide references for published species. However, genus chapters can include detailed species or genus descriptions and serve as the defining publication for names for validation in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.

Thank you for your valuable contributions!