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Someone added a taxobox treating these as members of an unranked stramenopile taxon, which was a direct subgroup of the eukaryotes. At the moment, though, we've been keeping the kingdom Protista and using ranks. The classification here is unsettled, and there are several different systems we could use here.

I think what might work best is to take the heterokonts as synonymous with the stramenopiles, as does Cavalier-Smith, rather than applying only to the algal forms, which may be paraphyletic. Cavalier-Smith uses a 5-kingdom system for eukaryotes, and we could move towards that, but for the moment I'm keeping them all crammed in a single division Heterokontophyta. However, it should be noted that's less standard for the expanded group than for the alga-only group. It may be that we want to revert the heterokont article to discussing only the algae, and have the water moulds as a separate division. In that case, should the expanded group be called the stramenopiles, which are stable but usually unranked, or chromists, which make a good kingdom but assume the haptophytes are related?

I would greatly appreciate any input other wikipedians had on this problem. It impacts a lot of protist groups, including some big names like kelp and diatoms. Josh 03:29, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If water moulds are actually more like algae than fungi, does this mean that fungicides will be ineffective against them? Is this why Phytophthora cinnamomi has been so hard to control? njh 11:33, 20 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In short, yes. Fungicides in general work to break down chitin in the fungal cell walls. Since oomycetes lack chitin, those fungicides are useless. Don't let a chemical company tell you otherwise.

The American spelling of "mould" ("mold") should probably be included.

I agree with that.

Hell if I know why wikipedia doesn't default to US spelling.

Gee, I wish I knew this earlier!! Just joking! I realize in a forum such as this, it's important to take into consideration other people's views and be respectful. However, I find that Pythium spp. are just as damaging, if not more so, than their more specific cousins, the Phytophthora spp. Perhaps the view that Phytophthora spp. are more damaging comes from their visibility in causing the Irish potato famine, in addition to the versatility of their spores, which can be dispensed aerially or be aqueously motile. Perhaps a note could be included, with a pointer to my own revision under Pythium (which also includes the appropriate references.... natch)

Nathanow 01:30, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

what do water moulds eat?

Is it really correct to redirect oomyctes to water moulds. Large numbers of the taxon are plant pathogens. (a Mentally Efficient Loonies And Nice Insane Elephants creation 13:39, 21 January 2007 (UTC))[reply]

I've moved the article from Water mould to Oomycete, per the request at WP:RM. There was already a non-trivial history at Oomycete containing the contribution details for some content that was imported into the current article in July, 2004. In order to preserve the history of that content, I swapped the two articles' histories, so what was previously at Oomycete can now be found in the history of the redirect currently at Water mould. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:19, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much you've made me a happy plant pathologist lol (Million_Moments 14:17, 20 April 2007 (UTC)).[reply]

I removed the sentence: water mold comes from everywhere and you can find it in jungles and other places. If you don't like something, you erase it, you don't just draw a line through it. Dream Focus (talk) 23:32, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I read in microbiology by prescott, harley and klein 7th ed that the group name is now Peronosporomycetes (and read elsewhere that it has the synonym Peronosporea). Polypipe Wrangler (talk) 02:58, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Some species can cause disease in fish, and at least one is a pathogen of mammals." Which?? --SCIdude (talk) 14:34, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This article is currently placed at Oomycete, which is the vernacular name for Oomycetes or Oomycota, depending on whether the group is classified as a class or phylum. The taxobox uses Oomycetes and I recently modified the lede for consistency, referring to Oomyctes first with Omycota as the alternative. Using Class Oomycetes in Pseudofungi is the Cavalier-Smith classification and used in Ruggerio et al, but Oomycota is also widely used. For instance, Beakes & Thines (2017) in the Handbook of Protists use Oomycota and have two classes with the -mycetes ending.

There is currently inconsistency across Wikipedia articles and taxoboxes. Miracula (family Miraculaceae) is placed in Oomycetes (within Psuedofungi, Gyrista, Stamenopiles, SAR, etc). However, the articles on five orders (and their component families, genera and species) use a classification with Phylum Oomycota in Heterokonta, Halvaria, Harosa and Chromista. The way things stand, the simplest solution is change the taxomomy templates for the order articles so they are placed in Oomycetes and change any mention of Oomycota in the text.

However, I think it might be best to discuss which classification should be used. Oomyctes or Oomycta? Which source(s)? —  Jts1882 | talk  15:37, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Jts1882 Oomycetes. It's the one supported by both the International Society of Protistologists (although the Peronosporomycetes name is preferred due to being older) and Cavalier-Smith's scheme, so there's really no room for controversy as far as I'm aware. Oomycota, just like Hyphochytridiomycota or Plasmodiophoromycota, are outdated terms from the 20th century when mycologists were trying to make these groups separate phyla or divisions, with no regard towards their systematic position. —Snoteleks (Talk) 16:56, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What is the full reference for the International Society of Protistologists? And if they prefer Peronosporomycetes, why use Oomycetes? Or am I missing something?

Another question? What orders are currently accepted (the lists of traditional orders and newer ones in the article are unsourced)? I've found a number of conflicting sources. We have an article at Pythiales (manual taxobox, parent Oomyctes) but the article at Pythiaceae has an automatic taxobox with parent Peronosporales in Oomycota. —  Jts1882 | talk  17:07, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the reference for the ISP.^[1] So yeah, they use Peronosporomycetes, but as far as I know Oomycetes is more popular in usage. They currently accept two "lineages", because their classification is currently being revised (much like the diatoms and dinoflagellates; it seems like another group with a convoluted taxonomic history). These are the so-called "Saprolegnian lineage" and "Peronosporalean lineage" (aka Saprolegniales and Peronosporales, but newly defined in their 2019 paper). —Snoteleks (Talk) 18:24, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

They also place in incertae sedis these genera: Atkinsiella, Ciliomyces, Crypticola, Ectrogella, Eurychasma, Halodaphnea, Haliphthoros, Haptoglossa, Lagena (homonymous with a foraminiferan apparently), Lagenisma, Olpidiopsis, Pontisma, Pythiella, Rozellopsis and Sirolpidium. —Snoteleks (Talk) 18:32, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Saprolegnialean and Peronosporalean lineages correspond with the subclasses or classes in other classifications: Saprolegniidae and Peronosporidae in class Oomycetes (Ruggiero et al, 2015) or Saprolegniomycetes and Peronosporomycetes in Oomycota (Beakes & Thines, 2017). The incertae genera belong to subclass Eogamia or "basal orders" in those classifications; others use "early diverging" orders (e.g. Garvetto et al, 2018).

I don't think we should replace the current classification with Adl et al (2019) with Peronosporomycetes, the lineages, and no orders or families. It's not been adopted else where and it seems more a provisional classification pending a more certain resolution of the relationships. That leaves Ruggiero et al (2015) using Oomycetes or Beakes & Thines (2017) using Oomycota. The general structure of both is similar, although there is some difference in orders used. Ruggiero uses Oomycetes and Pseudofungi, which might be the most suitable choice. —  Jts1882 | talk  10:44, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Jts1882 I absolutely agree that we should not use the provisional classification until further support. But right now I don't support using Oomycota (phylum) over Oomycetes (class). Oomycetes and Pseudofungi seems to me more suitable. What is the exact reference for the Beakes & Thines (2017) paper? —Snoteleks (Talk) 12:22, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I got a bit lazy with adding the references. Beakes & Thines (2017) is in the Handbook of the Protists. ^[2] —  Jts1882 | talk  12:36, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Jts1882 No worries. I'll check it out, I have the book downloaded. —Snoteleks (Talk) 15:40, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Jts1882 After some brief reading it seems that their taxonomic framework is also provisional (see Table 1 caption of their chapter). Also, it seems incompatible with Cavalier-Smith's phylum Gyrista that unites Pseudofungi and Ochrophytes as subphyla, because they treat both Pseudofungi subgroups as phyla themselves. Like I said before, this is the issue with classifications of fungus-like organisms that do not consider the taxonomic ranks of their closest non-fungus-like relatives; they end up being incompatible with more complete classifications. They also use Kingdom Straminipila which has fallen out of use, making it also incompatible with the cladistic scheme of the ISP. I would like to see if papers more recent than 2019 agree with this scheme. —Snoteleks (Talk) 15:50, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Oomycetes were originally grouped with fungi due to similarities in morphology and lifestyle. However, molecular and phylogenetic studies revealed significant differences between fungi and oomycetes which means the latter are now grouped with the stramenopiles" When was this done? Number774 (talk) 20:07, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]