Balance nature: role of ocean RNA viruses in ecosystems (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, June 09, 2022, 21:28 (897 days ago) @ David Turell

The ocean is filled with RNA viruses killing plankton and influencing teh carbon cycle:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2323643-thousands-of-previously-undescribed-viruse...

The first global survey of marine RNA viruses has discovered thousands of new viruses, some of which play a central role in locking away carbon at the bottom of the sea.

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The researchers identified more than 5000 types of RNA viruses in the sea, almost all of which were new to science. “It has expanded our view of how much diversity there is,” says Curtis Suttle at the University of British Columbia, who was not involved in the study.

The team focused particularly on the role viruses play in carbon sequestration. Every day massive numbers of dead plankton sink to the bottom of the ocean taking the carbon in their bodies with them, which is then entombed for potentially millions of years. This process, known as the biological carbon pump, puts away as much as 12 gigatons of carbon each year. That’s equivalent to around a third of the total annual human-caused CO2 emissions.

Researchers have long known viruses play a role in this process, but Huerta and the team have uncovered further details. The group believes that at least eleven of the newly discovered RNA viruses infect plankton important to the biological carbon pump, suggesting clear mechanisms for how viruses influence the pump. Unlike DNA viruses, which primarily infect bacteria and archaea, RNA viruses infect more complex plankton like algae and fungi. “When people think about viruses, they think about disease. They don’t think about CO2,” says Huerta.

An additional unexpected find from the survey was that RNA viruses in the ocean have extra genetic tools to manipulate their microbial hosts. Like DNA viruses, a number of RNA viruses in the survey appear to be able to alter the metabolism of their hosts using genes stolen from the hosts themselves. These extra genes, which RNA viruses might have evolved to contend with the extremely resource-depleted open ocean, could be another route for RNA viruses to affect the biological carbon pump.

Comment: Here again we see the vital importance of an ecosystem. All ecosystems are vital and contribute to the food supply and to other balances on Earth that protect life. These ere produced by a slow process of evolution preparing the way for the current huge human population, wshich couild easily be anticipated by a designer once our brain arrived with all its immense powers. dhw constantly complains God used a round-about way to produce humans. Really???