In this way, the team was able to identify around 5,500 additional species. With the new findings, the catalog of RNA viruses has been doubled from five to ten known strains.
According to the researchers, the largest phylum occurs primarily in temperate ocean zones, and another large phylum in the Arctic. Where which RNA viruses occur also helps to assess which living beings can become infected with the viruses – because little is known regarding this either.
RNA viruses are so named because they only have one strand of DNA. These viruses also include many viruses that affect humans, such as the corona viruses.
This message was broadcast on April 8th, 2022 on Deutschlandfunk.