The discovery of Antarctic RNA viruses: a new game changer

Antarctic ecosystems are dominated by micro-organisms, and viruses play particularly important roles in the food webs. Since the first report in 2009 (Lopez-Bueno et al. 2009), ‘omic’-based studies have greatly enlightened our understanding of Antarctic aquatic microbial diversity and ecosystem function (Wilkins et al. 2013; Cavicchioli 2015). This has included the discovery of many new eukaryotic viruses (Lopez-Bueno et al. 2009), virophage predators of algal viruses (Yau et al. 2011), bacteria with resistance to phage (Lauro et al. 2011) and mechanisms of haloarchaeal evasion, defence and adaptation to viruses (Tschitschko et al. 2015). In this issue of Molecular Ecology, Lopez-Bueno et al. (2015) report the first discovery of RNA viruses from an Antarctic aquatic environment. High sequence coverage enabled genome variation to be assessed for four positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses from the order Picornavirales. By examining the populations present in the water column and in the lake's catchment area, populations of ‘quasispecies’ were able to be linked to local environmental factors. In view of the importance of viruses in Antarctic ecosystems but lack of data describing them, this study represents a significant advance in the field.