A Viral Surprise in the Arctic Ocean

The Arctic is a previously unrecognized ‘cradle’ of viral biodiversity.  So far  200,000 viruses have been found swimming in the ocean.

New research provides the most complete account to date of the viruses that impact the world’s oceans, increasing the number of known virus populations tenfold.

 Electron Micrograph of Negative-Stained Prochlorococcus Myoviruses  

Credit: Public Library of Science journal / Wikimedia Commons

“This new understanding of viruses from the northern pole to the southern pole and from the surface to 4,000 meters deep may help scientists better understand how the oceans will behave under the pressures of climate change,” said Ahmed Zayed, co-lead author of the study and microbiology doctoral student at The Ohio State University.

“This is a massively expanded ‘catalog’ of ocean viruses, which we used to draw the first global map of viral diversity,” Zayed said.

Added Ann Gregory, co-lead author of the study, “What was really exciting was now being able to study these viruses at two important levels – the population level and by looking at genetic variation within each population, which tells us about evolution.

“We have expanded the number of known viral populations more than tenfold and this new map will help us understand the impact of ocean viruses on a global level,” said Gregory, formerly of Ohio State and now a postdoctoral trainee in Belgium at KU Leuven.

The samples were collected during the unprecedented three-year Tara Oceans Expedition, in which a team of more than 200 experts took to the sea to catalog and better understand the unseen inhabitants of the ocean, from tiny animals to viruses and bacteria.

In addition to the prior research in the temperate and tropical oceans, this new work includes samples from the schooner’s circumnavigation of the Arctic Ocean – the area most significantly impacted by climate change.

The researchers involved in the new study were able to document the viruses by analyzing their genetics, and by using advanced computational algorithms.

The study was the first to systematically sample the Arctic for viruses and it included deeper samples from other oceans than previously studied, Zayed said. A detailed accounting of these viruses is important because of their broad influence on other marine microbes, including bacteria, archaea, protozoa and fungi.

The new study was co-led by Zayed, Gregory and Matthew Sullivan, Ohio State professor of microbiology and civil, environmental and geodetic engineering.

“Marine microbes have a profound impact on our earth. They produce more than half of the oxygen we breathe, they move carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the sea floor and they make up about 60 percent of the ocean’s biomass, acting as the foundation of the food web in the oceans,” Sullivan said.

Source: http://www.ineffableisland.com/2019/04/a-viral-surprise-in-arctic-ocean.html