Virus taxonomy emerged as a discipline in the middle of the twentieth century. Traditionally, classification by virus taxonomists has been focussed on the grouping of relatively closely related viruses. However, during the past few years, the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) has recognized that the taxonomy it develops can be usefully extended to include the basal evolutionary relationships among distantly related viruses. Consequently, the ICTV has changed its Code to allow a 15-rank classification hierarchy that closely aligns with the Linnaean taxonomic system and may accommodate the entire spectrum of genetic divergence in the virosphere. The current taxonomies of three human pathogens, Ebola virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus and herpes simplex virus 1 are used to illustrate the impact of the expanded rank structure. This new rank hierarchy of virus taxonomy will stimulate further research on virus origins and evolution, and vice versa, and could promote crosstalk with the taxonomies of cellular organisms.

中文翻译：

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病毒分类的新范围：将病毒层划分为15个等级。

病毒分类学在二十世纪中叶成为一门学科。传统上，病毒分类学家的分类一直集中在相对紧密相关的病毒的分组上。但是，在过去几年中，国际病毒分类学委员会（ICTV）认识到，其开发的分类学可以有效地扩展到包括远距离相关病毒之间的基础进化关系。因此，ICTV更改了其《守则》，以允许15级分类层次结构与Linnaean分类系统紧密结合，并可能适应病毒层遗传多样性的整个范围。当前三种人类病原体的分类法，埃博拉病毒，严重的急性呼吸系统综合症冠状病毒和单纯疱疹病毒1被用来说明扩展等级结构的影响。这种新的病毒分类等级体系将刺激对病毒起源和进化的进一步研究，反之亦然，并可能促进与细胞生物分类法的串扰。