Viral Spillover Risk in Arctic Lake

Current Context: UK’s biological research journal, “The Royal Society”, published a research article titled, “Viral spillover risk increases with climate change in High Arctic Lake sediments”.

• Sediment deposits and soil samples were collected by the researchers from Lake Hazen in Canada to understand the ‘viral spillover’ phenomenon.
• The research team then undertook DNA and RNA sequencing to study the virus composition in the lake.
• It was concluded that there was a high probability that the melting of ice due to climate change can result in ‘viral spillover’.
• They said that the melting of glaciers in the polar region of the High Arctic Zone can become fertile ground for global pandemics.
• The process of transmission of the virus into a novel host for replication/multiplication is termed ‘viral spillover’.

Question:

Q.1 Recently researchers studied the phenomenon of ‘viral spillover’ in?
a. High Arctic Zone
b. Antarctica
c. Ganga-Brahmaputra Basin
d. Sahara Desert