ABSTRACT Summary Classification of viruses is regulated by the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV). This organisation provides not only the rules to be applied but has to approve all new names for virus species, genera or higher taxa. Anybody may make a taxonomic proposal but most frequently they are generated by specialist study groups that exist for most genera (or groups of related genera). The procedure for proposing, examining, discussing and approving these proposals is explained. The printed ICTV reports provide authoritative accounts of each order, family and genus that has been approved and list the accepted species in each genus. The 8 th report has recently been published. For most genera, criteria for species discrimination have been developed and these often include an indication of the extent of sequence divergence that would be expected between isolates of different species. These criteria are still being developed as illustrated by recent studies in the family Potyviridae. Between reports, the latest taxonomic decisions can be viewed via a web site and are implemented in the specialist database, ICTVdb. There are recent proposals to create an order Picornavirales for some ssRNA viruses and an order Reovirales for most, or all, of the dsRNA viruses. The correct way of writing virus species names is explained and the discussion on "non-latinized binomial nomenclature" is reviewed. The exponential growth of virus sequence data poses a continual challenge to nomenclature and taxonomy but new initiatives aim to improve the quality and speed of information available.
Plant virus taxonomy : some current issues - ResearchGate. Available from: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/253826493_Plant_virus_taxonomy__some_current_issues [accessed May 10, 2015].