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How is a virus species defined ? As I understand it a species is a group of organisms that can reproduce viably with each other. But a virus doesn't reproduce l
by ajnin 7y ago
How is a virus species defined ? As I understand it a species is a group of organisms that can reproduce viably with each other. But a virus doesn't reproduce like that, they clone themselves by hijacking a cell's machinery, so there is no notion of compatibility between viruses. The article says that Covid-19 is "similar" to SARS so it was put in the same species, but that seems a rather soft definition. Especially if there are trillions of different viruses like the article says, some objective criterion is needed. Not to mention viruses mutate all the time, at what point does it become a new species?
- nvrspyx 7y agoThe International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) is responsible for classifying viruses and they use a bunch of different criteria, such as chemical characteristics, structure (e.g. look at Covid-19 vs a bacteriophage), type of nucleic acid, mode of replication, host organisms, and the types of diseases they cause. They also group them based on common ancestors. In other words, it becomes a new species when there's a change to the phenotypic traits above.
- dekhn 7y agoMany human concepts only approximate the underlying physical reality, and the concept of "species" is a great example of that, especially when applied to a population of viruses. It's unclear whether having a truly accurate concept of species is even an achievable or desirable goal.
- Ericson2314 7y agoYeah species is exta. hard for asexually reproducing species. Sometimes two different viruses infect the same cell and we get a hybrid. Doing that in a lab and looking at the offspring vitality rate would be interesting, and mathematically coherent.