Learn more regarding the diversity and abundance of virus in the oceans is important in explaining the role of microbes in the adaptation of mares al climate change. Now, a scientific team has identified 5,500 new species of viruses of ARN in samples collected around the world.
“The collected ocean water samples yield a trove of new data on these viruses, expanding the possibilities for ecological research and reshaping our understanding of how these small, but important, submicroscopic particles evolved,” according to the scientists, who publish their findings in the journal “Science”.
RNA viruses are “clearly important in our world,” but only a small fraction of them are typically studied: the few hundred that harm humans, plants and animals.
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In this research, scientists wanted to systematically study them on a large scale and explore an environment that no one had analyzed in depth: “We were lucky because practically all the species were new, and many were really new,” says a note from the Ohio State University .
Combining machine learning analyzes with traditional evolutionary trees, the team identified 5,500 new species of RNA viruses, of which hundreds can be included in the five known RNA virus phyla; the researchers suggest that at least five new phyla would be needed to encompass them all.
The most abundant collection of newly discovered species has been grouped in the “Taraviricota” phylum, proposed as new by the researchers.
It is a nod to the source of the 35,000 water samples that enabled the analysis: the Tara Oceans Consortium, an ongoing global study of the impact of climate change on the world’s oceans, aboard the schooner Tara.
“There’s a lot of new diversity here and an entire phylum, the ‘Taraviricota’, was found in all oceans, suggesting that they are ‘ecologically important’,” said Matthew Sullivan, lead author of the study and a researcher at The Ohio State University.
While microbes make a unique contribution to all life on the planet, the viruses that infect and interact with them have a wide variety of influences on microbial function.
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These types of viruses are thought to have three main functions: to kill cells, to change the way infected cells handle energy, and to transfer genes from one host to another.
Better understanding of the diversity and abundance of viruses in the world’s oceans will help explain the role of marine microbes in the ocean’s adaptation to climate change, the study authors say.
The oceans absorb half of the human-generated carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and previous research by this group had suggested that marine viruses are the “button” of a biological pump that affects carbon storage in the ocean.
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