Abstract
An ecosystem is a complex network of interactions among living organisms and the nonliving components of their environment. Generally, a living organism is defined as belonging to one of three domains of life: the archaea, bacteria, and eukaryote domains. Therefore, viruses are not considered living components of the global ecosystem. Given that approximately 1031 viruses exist on Earth and all of them are parasitic in living organisms, it is not hard to imagine how virus infection might affect the physiological functions of both hosts and the ecosystem. However, since traditional virology research tends to focus on viral pathogenicity, the significance of viruses and viral-mediated processes in the global ecosystem are poorly understood. To identify previously unrecognized roles of the virus per se in nature, here we propose to establish a new academic field designated as 'Neo-virology'. In this research field, we define a virus as a component of the global ecosystem and aim to elucidate its key roles in host organisms as a part of the global ecosystem.
