Nearly 1,000 new species of bacteria in samples of snow and ice from Tibetan glaciers have been discovered by scientists, raising concerns about the spread of disease as the ice caps melt from global warming.
Researchers assessed whether bacterial species trapped in Tibet’s glaciers could make their way to other regions as snow and ice melt, according to the new study, published last week in the journal Nature Biotechnology.
Ice samples from 21 glaciers in Tibet were collected between 2010 and 2016 by researchers – including those from the Chinese Academy of Sciences – who melted them to analyze what was left.
They discovered 968 unique species of bacteria, of which 98 percent were previously unknown to science.
The new findings come almost a year after scientists discovered ancient viruses trapped by glaciers – some of which were more than 15,000 years old – on the Tibetan Plateau.
Ice sheets and glaciers make up almost a tenth of the Earth’s surface coverage, and a growing number of studies also show that they are melting due to the climate crisis.
The scientists suspect that some of the captured bacteria may be infectious to modern plants, animals and humans, who particularly lack immunity to these older microbes.
“These microorganisms may carry new virulence factors that make plants, animals and humans vulnerable,” the scientists wrote in the study.
The researchers warn that such modern and ancient pathogenic microbes trapped in glaciers “could lead to local epidemics and even pandemics.”
The newly discovered bacteria in the current study also come from a particularly important region of the world—one where melting snow and ice feed several rivers that lead to densely populated parts of China and India.
“The Tibetan Plateau, which is known as the water tower of Asia, is the source of several of the world’s largest rivers, including the Yangtze, the Yellow River, the Ganges River and the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra River),” the researchers wrote.
“The release of potentially dangerous bacteria could affect the world’s two most populous countries: China and India,” they added.
In future studies, scientists hope to assess whether microbes released by melting glaciers into rivers around the world pose a threat to plants and animals downstream.
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