- A warming climate could bring viruses in the Arctic into contact with new environments and hosts.
- The team sampled soil that becomes a riverbed for melted glacier water in the summer, as well as the lakebed itself — which required clearing snow and drilling through two meters of ice, even in May when the research was carried out.
- The difference was less stark in the riverbeds, which the researchers theorize is because water erodes the topsoil, removing organisms and limiting interactions between viruses and potential new hosts.
Climate change may boost Arctic ‘virus spillover’ risk
