World’s oldest marine DNA found at 1 million years old in Antarctica

Scientists have discovered the world’s oldest marine DNA in Antarctica, dating back a million years.

The discovery of these priceless bits of organic matter beneath the Scotia Sea north of Antarctica could shed light on how life has evolved in the oceans over the past millions of years, as well as provide insight into how climate change is affecting ocean ecosystems. in the long term, this is important, since Antarctica is one of the most vulnerable regions of the Earth to global warming.

An international team of scientists led by the University of Tasmania in Australia has discovered fragments of organic material beneath the northern Antarctic Sea of ​​Scotia, which is technically called sedaDNA, after ancient RNA.

The recovered samples are likely to help scientists understand how climate change could affect Antarctica in the future.

“This includes by far the oldest certified marine sedaDNA to date,” said marine ecologist Dr Linda Armbrecht, principal investigator at the University of Tasmania.

SedaDNA has been found in many environments, including terrestrial caves and subarctic permafrost, where material has been dated to 400,000 to 650,000 years ago.

Low temperatures, low oxygen levels, and a lack of ultraviolet radiation make polar marine environments like the Scotia Sea great places to keep sedaDNA intact, just waiting to be found.

Scientists extracted DNA from the ocean floor in 2019. It then went through an extensive contamination control process to ensure the signs of age embedded in the material are accurate.

Among other organisms discovered, the team found diatoms, or single-celled organisms, with DNA dating back 540,000 years.

This was important to scientists because it allows a better understanding of how this part of the world has evolved over vast periods of time.

Scientists have been able to link the abundance of diatoms to warmer periods, the last of which was in the Scotia Sea about 14,500 years ago. This has led to an increase in the overall activity of marine life in the Antarctic region.

“This is an interesting and important change associated with global and rapid sea level rise and massive ice loss in Antarctica due to natural warming,” said geologist Michael Weber from the University of Bonn in Germany.

This latest research suggests that these sedaDNA technologies could be useful in restoring ecosystems over hundreds of thousands of years, giving us a whole new level of understanding of how the oceans are changing.

And scientists say a better understanding of past climate changes and how the ocean ecosystem has responded means better models and predictions of what might happen around Antarctica in the future.

“Antarctica is one of the most vulnerable regions on Earth to climate change, and studying the past and present response of this polar marine ecosystem to environmental change is an urgent task,” the scientists wrote in their paper published in Nature Communications.

Source: Daily Mail

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