Marine viruses disperse bidirectionally along the natural water cycle

Janina Rahlff (), Sarah P. Esser, Julia Plewka, Mara Elena Heinrichs, André Soares, Claudio Scarchilli, Paolo Grigioni, Heike Wex, Helge-Ansgar Giebel and Alexander J. Probst
Additional contact information
Janina Rahlff: University of Duisburg-Essen
Sarah P. Esser: University of Duisburg-Essen
Julia Plewka: University of Duisburg-Essen
Mara Elena Heinrichs: Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg
André Soares: University of Duisburg-Essen
Claudio Scarchilli: Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA)
Paolo Grigioni: Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA)
Heike Wex: Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS)
Helge-Ansgar Giebel: Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg
Alexander J. Probst: University of Duisburg-Essen

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: Abstract Marine viruses in seawater have frequently been studied, yet their dispersal from neuston ecosystems at the air-sea interface towards the atmosphere remains a knowledge gap. Here, we show that 6.2% of the studied virus population were shared between air-sea interface ecosystems and rainwater. Virus enrichment in the 1-mm thin surface microlayer and sea foams happened selectively, and variant analysis proved virus transfer to aerosols collected at ~2 m height above sea level and rain. Viruses detected in rain and these aerosols showed a significantly higher percent G/C base content compared to marine viruses. CRISPR spacer matches of marine prokaryotes to foreign viruses from rainwater prove regular virus-host encounters at the air-sea interface. Our findings on aerosolization, adaptations, and dispersal support transmission of viruses along the natural water cycle.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42125-5 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:14:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-023-42125-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-42125-5

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().