[OANNES Foro] Hundreds of thousands of marine viruses discovered in world's oceans

Sab Abr 27 10:51:59 PDT 2019

Survey reveals virus diversity hotspots in the Arctic Ocean, as well as the
surface waters of temperate and tropical seas.

Hundreds of  thousands of marine viruses discovered in world's oceans

 <javascript:;> Erin I. Garcia de Jesus

25 APRIL 2019

The world's oceans harbour nearly 200,000 virus species - two orders of
magnitude more than scientists had previously recorded, according to a
survey of marine microbes. Researchers also found an unexpected pocket of
viral diversity in the Arctic Ocean.

The results
<https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01329-w?utm_source=Nature+Briefi
ng&utm_campaign=c02f2e898f-briefing-dy-20190426&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_
c9dfd39373-c02f2e898f-42095803#ref-CR1> 1, published on 25 April in Cell,
provide scientists with a foundation for understanding how viruses affect
marine ecosystems - including the effect they have on the way organisms
interact and the ocean's response to climate change.

Every spoonful of seawater is filled with millions of viruses. And although
most are harmless to people, they can infect a variety of marine life such
as whales, crustaceans and bacteria.
<https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.4268> Mapping viral biodiversity will
provide a more accurate depiction of what's happening in the ocean and
enable researchers to better predict its future, says Ahmed Zayed, a
microbiologist at the Ohio State University in Columbus and co-lead author
on the study.

A viral hotspot

Researchers collected seawater samples from nearly 80 sites around the world
between 2009 and 2013, from surface waters to depths of 4,000 metres. The
effort was part of two larger projects, called
<https://www.nature.com/news/global-ocean-trawl-reveals-plethora-of-new-life
forms-1.17612> Tara Oceans and Malaspina, which study carbon dioxide and
climate change in Earth's oceans. A previous analysis
<https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01329-w?utm_source=Nature+Briefi
ng&utm_campaign=c02f2e898f-briefing-dy-20190426&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_
c9dfd39373-c02f2e898f-42095803#ref-CR2> 2 of marine viruses by these
missions had identified more than 15,000 species.

Zayed and his colleagues analysed the viral DNA in the latest samples and
separated the sequences into 'viral populations' - the closest equivalent of
species for viruses. They found nearly 200,000 populations in five ocean
zones around the globe, with the species in each zone comprising their own
viral community.

The most diverse communities were in temperate and tropical surface waters,
as well as in the Arctic Ocean - a geographically and politically difficult
region to access, and one of the most at risk from climate change.

Using this new map of virus diversity, scientists could manipulate specific
areas of the ocean to boost the viral community's ability to move carbon
dioxide from shallow waters into the deep ocean, says Matthew Sullivan, a
microbiologist at Ohio State University and senior author on the study. The
oceans absorb half of the carbon dioxide that people pump into Earth's
atmosphere. And previous analyses
<https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01329-w?utm_source=Nature+Briefi
ng&utm_campaign=c02f2e898f-briefing-dy-20190426&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_
c9dfd39373-c02f2e898f-42095803#ref-CR3> 3 have found that marine viruses can
help to drive carbon in the ocean's surface waters to the depths, locking it
away from the atmosphere.

It's scary to consider engineering the ocean like this, Sullivan says. "But
we need to be thinking about seriously impactful ways to stem the coming
climate issues we are facing."

The tip of the iceberg

The revelation that viruses form communities in the world's oceans
emphasizes how little we know about them, says Curtis Suttle, a marine
virologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. And even
though researchers now have a massive amount of data on ocean viruses, there
are still many unsampled regions of the sea, he adds. Untapped areas include
vast portions of the western Indian Ocean and the eastern Pacific Ocean.

Other researchers want more data to flesh out the question of viral
diversity in the world's oceans. The project team sampled Arctic waters
repeatedly in a small area over six months, whereas samples other regions
came from single-collection trips, says Rebecca Vega Thurber, a
microbiologist at Oregon State University in Corvallis. It's remarkable that
the Arctic was a diversity hotspot, she says, but repeated sampling could
reveal greater diversity at other locations.

Despite that, Vega Thurber is excited about this latest marine-virus data
set. The study researchers "are creating the encyclopaedias that we need to
look through to understand what we're studying", she says.

References

1. Gregory, A. C. et al. Cellhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2019.03.040
(2019).
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5&publication_year=2019&author=Gregory%2CA.C.> Google Scholar

2. Roux, S. et al. Nature 537, 689-693 (2016).
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&dopt=A
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3. Guidi, L. et al. Nature 532, 465-470 (2016).
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