Fig. 2

Genetic discontinuity properties of ten selected species. a Distribution of ranked genomic identities, revealing breakpoints around 95%. Vertical dashed lines for Chlamydia trachomatis and Mycobacterium tuberculosis indicate breaks beyond 90% from their closest genomes. The x-axis is represented in log-scale. b Genetic Rate of Change is depicted across different identity values, with the break-associated point emphasized by a red circle. This point represents the key measure of genetic discontinuity \((\delta )\) examined in this work (see “Methods” for comprehensive information). Genomes are colored based on GTDB classification