Ambigous oxygen requirements annotations

[Arik Harel]

The data contain organisms with the five following categories of oxygen requirements:
1. Obligatory anaerobe;      2. Anaerobe;    3. Microaerophile;    4. Facultative;   5. Aerobe;    6. Obligatory Aerobes.

Considering the fact that there is catgeory for facultatives and for obligatory-anaerobes, it is a bit unclear to me what does Anaerobe mean?
    Is it a facultative?  Or is it an obligatory-anaerobe?
Similarly,what does Aerobe mean here? is it facultative Or obligatory-aerobe?


Any ideas?
Thank you.


Arik

[I-Min Chen]

IMG gets metadata from GOLD: http://www.genomesonline.org/

Please contact Tatiparthi Reddy or Nikos Kyrpides ("Team" link from the above URL).

[Arik Harel]

See I-Min Chen (from img) comment below. This data is derived from GOLD.

Therefore I have contacted GOLD, which kindly and efficiently provided a prompt answer.
Here I cite a part of their answer:


"TRUNCATED    ...In our database of organisms, there is the "umbrella" classification of Anaerobe and Aerobe, and the more specific classification of Facultative and Obligates. Facultative Anaerobe and  Aerobe can live with or without the presence of oxygen - these are classified and lumped together. An Obligate Anaerobe organism cannot survive when exposed to oxygen...     TRUNCATED"

"TRUNCATED...The umbrella classifications for Aerobe and Anaerobe are to encompass the range of organisms upon which there is no known specific (facultative or obligate) classification in terms of their oxygen requirement.
 In using this data, it is up to the user to research further or assume "facultative" or "obligate" designations to describe any organism found under the classification Aerobe or Anaerobe....TRUNCATED"

Basically it means to me that we can safely claim that organisms classified as: Aerobe      are for sure Not obligatory-anaerobes,
                                                                         and organisms classified as  Anaerobes are for sure Not obligatory-aerobes.

Claiming that an organism that belong to these classification is obligatory or facultative is not "safe", and therefore needs further proves.


Hope this post will be useful to others as well.