Scientists find trove of over 5,000 new viruses hidden in oceans

Major discovery paves way for scientists to ask for more categories to capture the diversity of newly discovered viruses

At least 5,500 new virus species have been found from oceans across the globe in a major new discovery, prompting researchers to propose more categories to classify them to properly capture their diversity. The advance, led by an international team of researchers, combined machine-learning analyses with traditional evolutionary trees by assessing an exhaustive 35,000 water samples from the world over to identify the new viruses that contain the genetic material RNA.

Researchers explained “only a tiny slice” of the thousands of virus species that harm humans, plants and animals have been studied. The findings, published in the journal Science, stated the newly discovered virus species not only represented the five known RNA virus phyla – or level of classification – but also indicated that at least five new phyla are needed to capture the diversity of the findings.

While hundreds of the new RNA virus species fit into existing divisions, thousands of other species can now be clustered into five new proposed phyla, said researchers. They include Taraviricota, Pomiviricota, Paraxenoviricota, Wamoviricota and Arctiviricota.

It was pointed out that the most abundant collection of the newly identified species belong to the proposed Taraviricota phylum. The proposed name for the phylum is a nod to the source of the 35,000 water samples that enabled the analysis – the Tara Oceans Consortium, a global study that assesses the impact of climate change on the world’s oceans onboard the schooner Tara.

“There’s so much new diversity here – and an entire phylum, the Taraviricota, were found all over the oceans, which suggests they’re ecologically important,” study lead author Matthew Sullivan from The Ohio State University said.

Unravelling more information on virus diversity across the planet and in the world’s oceans can thus help better understand the marine microbes’ role in ocean adaptation to climate change.