When you think of the Arctic, you might be picturing a barren, isolated, lifeless landscape. But come spring, that first sunlight reawakens an abundance of life. Yes, you will see adorable polar bears sticking their heads above ground, but a less cute lifeform that springs into action is algae.
After lying dormant throughout months of darkness, algae flourish with a little sunshine, blackening the ice and making it much easier for the ice to melt thanks to the darker color.
This, of course, is not good news for our planet. But a recent discovery in Greenland by researchers from Aahus University has found giant viruses living on those same ice sheets.
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At this point you might be wondering 'what the hell is a giant virus?'. Valid question.
To put it into perspective, your bog-standard virus measures at about 20-200 nanometers. Compare this to a typical bacteria which measures around 2-3 micrometers.
Giant viruses, on the other hand, grow to the size of 2.5 micrometers (2,500 nanometers) putting your average virus to shame and overtaking the size of most bacteria.
In this field study, researchers took samples from dark ice, red snow and melting holes (cryoconite).
The team analyzed all the DNA samples and what they found was astonishing.
Researcher Laura Perini explained that after 'sifting through this huge dataset looking for specific marker genes, we found sequences that have high similarity to known giant viruses'. The first of their kind to be found on ice.
The next step was to to make sure that the viral DNA was an active microorganism, not something that was already dead. Long story short, an analysis of the mRNA found that this giant virus was alive and present in the dark ice and red snow.
While they were discovered in 1981 in the ocean and later on land and even in humans, this is the first time active giant viruses have been found on ice and snow dominated by microalgae. They’re a relatively new discovery, particularly in this environment, so we have limited knowledge of them.
But why is the discovery good news? Well, the virus could wield a secret power. They could be feasting on the algae, helping to control growth and limit ice melting.
Perini explained that while we don’t know too much about giant viruses, she suspects that they feed on the snow algae and 'could be a useful way of alleviating ice melting caused by algal blooms'.
There remains a lot of unanswered questions, like how we would be able to target viruses to control algae and how efficient it would be, but the researchers are still in the initial stages.
Perini has more research on these viruses coming out soon, so watch this space.