Ratification vote on taxonomic proposals to the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (2009)

Abstract

In accordance with the Statutes of the International Committee of Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV), the final stage in the process of making changes to the Universal Scheme of Virus Classification is the ratification of taxonomic proposals by ICTV Members. This can occur either at a Plenary meeting of ICTV, held during an International Congress of Virology conference, or by circulation of proposals by mail followed by a ballot. In recent years, ICTV has attempted to make the ratification process more efficient and timely. Therefore, a list of proposals that had been subjected to the full, multi-stage review process was prepared and presented on the ICTVonline web pages by June 2009 (http://talk.ictvonline. org/media/22/default.aspx). This review process involved input from the ICTV Study Groups and Subcommittees, other interested virologists, and the ICTV Executive Committee. For the second time, the ratification process was performed entirely by email. The proposals were sent electronically via email on July 5 2009 to ICTV Life Members (11), ICTV Subcommittee Members (80), and ICTV National Representatives (52). Members were then requested to vote on whether or not to ratify the taxonomic proposals, within a three week deadline (voting closed on July 31 2009). ICTV attempts to keep an up-to-date list of all members, including National Representatives, but this is a daunting task. As a means of promoting contact between ICTV and its National Members and to ensure that lists of members are up-to-date, member Societies of IUMS are obliged to either renew ICTV National Members or replace them every three years. In effect, National Members have a 3-year tenure that can be renewed indefinitely. National Societies, which are members of the International Union of Microbiological Societies, are encouraged to contact ICTV directly through the ICTV Secretary with the names of their National Representatives. The Secretary and President of ICTV continually correspond with National Societies to encourage them to communicate yearly with ICTV concerning their National Representative to ICTV. Complete contact information for ICTV Executive Committee members can be obtained from the ICTV web site: http://ictvonline.org. The following are the taxonomic proposals that were ratified by ICTV members in July 2009. The proposals are organized by specific subcommittee, and then the filename posted on-line, which contained the specific information about the proposals. Note that by ICTV convention, all taxon names are italicized.