A group of Spanish biologists has recently announced the discovery of highly diverse viruses in Antarctica, challenging the long-held scientific belief that extreme climate conditions often result in low biological diversity.
In their biological study of Limnopolar Lake located on Livingston Island, the Spanish scientists reported on 90,000 virus gene sequences. This represents the largest number of “virus families” ever identified within a microbial ecological community (known as a metagenome) in aquatic environments.
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Limnopolar Lake. (Image: Internet). |
From this data, the research team estimates that there are about 10,000 virus species in Limnopolar Lake. Additionally, the scientists discovered a significant number of high-structure viruses with variable genomes.
Biologist Antonio Quesada from the Autonomous University of Madrid noted that both the quantity and diversity of the viruses found were surprising. He stated that this is the first study to describe the changes in virus species before and after the melting period. The researchers also uncovered the presence of extremely small viruses and several previously unknown virus families.
For biologist Antonio Alcami from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), this four-year study marks the first step in understanding the role of viruses in ecosystems with extremely harsh climate conditions.
He pointed out that the most important question the researchers explored was why this ecosystem, which is only 5,000-6,000 years old, exhibits such a high level of virus diversity.
This study is part of the Limnopolar project, which began in 2001, aimed at analyzing the potential of freshwater ecosystems in polar regions as tools for indicating global climate change./.