This raises concerns that as the world warms and glaciers melt, pathogens unknown to science could spread and cause a deadly pandemic.
The researchers found the viruses in a 300m-long ice core taken from a glacier on the Tibetan Plateau.
In other parts of the world, scientists have already detected deadly pathogens from melting permafrost, and the findings have sparked fears of possible virus outbreaks.
For example, in 2016 anthrax spores spread from an animal carcass frozen in the Siberian permafrost for 75 years. Dozens of people were hospitalized and one child died.
But fortunately, according to the researchers, all 1,700 viruses found in this latest study do not pose any threat to human health.
This is because these viruses can only infect archaea – single-celled organisms – and bacteria. They cannot infect humans, animals or even plants.
But their research is important because it provides a glimpse into the deep history of Earth’s climate and can help us understand what microbial populations might look like in the future.
A team of scientists from Ohio State University (USA) divided the ice core taken for research into nine segments, each of which reflected a different time period and climatic period. The age of the segments ranged from 160 to 41,000 years.
The researchers extracted DNA from each segment and identified each individual virus strain using a so-called metagenomic analysis.
Ultimately, they cataloged about 50 times more information about viruses than scientists had ever collected from glaciers before.
In their analysis, the researchers found that the viral communities looked very different depending on the climate at the time they were frozen.
“We saw clear differences between viruses that existed in colder climates and viruses that existed in warmer climates,” said Ohio State University microbiologist Matthew Sullivan, one of the study’s authors.
For example, a distinct viral community formed 11,500 years ago, when the climate transitioned from the cold phase of the last ice age to the warmer Holocene epoch we are in now.
“This at least suggests a possible link between viruses and climate change,” said Ohio State University microbiologist ZhiPing Zhong, one of the study’s authors.
The results of the study have been published in Nature Geosciences.
Adapted from the Daily Mail.
2024-09-01 17:47:30