タグ「Radioactive contamination」
Title: Bird population declines due to radiation exposure at Chernobyl are stronger in species with pheomelanin-based coloration
Author: Galván, Ismael / Mousseau, Timothy A. / Møller, Anders P.
Reference: Oecologia, 165 (4), p.827-835, Apr 2011
doi:10.1007/s00442-010-1860-5
Keywords: Eumelanin, Glutathione, Pheomelanin, Plumage coloration, Radioactive contamination
Abstract: Eumelanin and pheomelanin are the most common pigments providing color to the integument of vertebrates. While pheomelanogenesis requires high levels of a key intracellular antioxidant (glutathione, GSH), eumelanogenesis is inhibited by GSH. This implies that species that possess the molecular basis to produce large amounts of pheomelanin might be more limited in coping with environmental conditions that generate oxidative stress than species that produce eumelanin. Exposure to ionizing radiation produces free radicals and depletes antioxidant resources. GSH is particularly susceptible to radiation, so that species with large proportions of pheomelanic integument may be limited by the availability of GSH to combat oxidative stress and may thus suffer more from radiation effects. We tested this hypothesis in 97 species of birds censused in areas with varying levels of radioactive contamination around Chernobyl. After controlling for the effects of carotenoid-based color, body mass and similarity among taxa due to common phylogenetic descent, the proportion of pheomelanic plumage was strongly negatively related to the slope estimates of the relationship between abundance and radiation levels, while no effect of eumelanic color proportion was found. This represents the first report of an effect of the expression of melanin-based coloration on the capacity to resist the effects of ionizing radiation. Population declines were also stronger in species that exhibit carotenoid-based coloration and have large body mass. The magnitude of population declines had a relatively high phylogenetic signal, indicating that certain groups of birds, especially non-corvid passeriforms, are particularly susceptible to suffer from the effects of radioactive contamination due to phylogenetic inertia.
URL: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00442-010-1860-5
Title: Radiation contamination after the chernobyl nuclear accident and the effective dose received by the population of Croatia
Author: Lokobauer, Nevenka / Franić, Zdenko / Bauman, Alica / Maračić, Manda / Cesar, Dobroslav / Senčar, Jasminka
Reference: Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, 41 (2), p.137-146, Nov 1998
doi: 10.1016/S0265-931X(97)00006-4
Keywords: Radioactive contamination, Croatia, humans, 137Cs, 90Sr
Abstract: Because of the Chernobyl nuclear accident which led to enhanced deposition of all fission products, contamination of the human environment in the Republic of Croatia was much higher than in the previous two decades. The paper deals with the investigation of deposition and contamination by fission product radionuclides (137Cs and 90Sr, in particular), especially within the human food chain. Its aim was to determine differences in contamination levels resulting from the Chernobyl accident and from large-scale atmospheric nuclear weapon tests. For the year following the Chernobyl accident, the radiation doses received from external and internal exposures were estimated for 1-year old infants, children at the age of 10-years and adults. The corresponding annual effective doses were 1·49, 0·93 and 0·83 mSv, respectively. The paper also gives data on the yearly intakes of 137Cs and 90Sr in foods and the corresponding effective doses received by the population of Croatia over many years from the global fallout following nuclear weapons testing and the Chernobyl accident.
URL:http://www.franic.info/radovi/NLokobauer_Radiation_Contamination_after_Chernobyl.pdf
Title: [The regulation of the oxidative processes in the tissues of Muridae like rodents caught in the Chernobyl accident zone].
Author: Shishkina, L N / Kudiasheva, A G / Zagorskaia, N G / Taskaev, A I
Reference: Radiatsionnaia biologiia, radioecologiia / Rossiĭskaia akademiia nauk, 46 (2), p.216-232, Mar 2006
Keywords: Radioactive contamination, Chernobyl exclusion zone, wild rodents, lipid peroxidation
Abstract: The results of the investigations of the radioactive contamination consequences on the lipid peroxidation (LPO) processes in organs and tissues of wild rodents which were caught in the Chernobyl NPP accident 30-km zone during 1986-1993 are generalized. The behaviors of the technogenic contamination effect on dynamic of changes of the LPO physico-chemical regulatory system parameters and the generalized parameters of the phospholipid composition in organs of the different radioresistance wild rodents are revealed in dependence on the radioactive contamination level and the duration of the radiation factor exposure. Different sensitivity of the LPO regulatory system parameters in wild rodent tissues to the radioactive contamination of their environment and the unequal ability to normalization of the antioxidant status and the energy exchange in tissues result in the change of the scale and character of interrelations between the reciprocal parameters in norm and have an influence on the development of qualitatively new subpopulations of wild rodents due to the transition of the cell regulatory system to the another level of the function.
URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16756119?dopt=Abstract
Title: Effects of radioactive contamination on Scots pines in the remote period after the Chernobyl accident
Author: Geras’kin, Stanislav / Oudalova, Alla / Dikareva, Nina / Spiridonov, Sergey / Hinton, Thomas / Chernonog, Elena / Garnier-Laplace, Jacqueline
Reference: Ecotoxicology, 20 (6), p.1195-1208, Aug 2011 DOI: 10.1007/s10646-011-0664-7
Keywords: Chernobyl accident, Radioactive contamination, Scots pine, Absorbed doses, Cytogenetic effects, Reproductive ability, Radio-adaptation
Abstract: A 6 year study of Scots pine populations inhabiting sites in the Bryansk region of Russia radioactively contaminated as a result of the Chernobyl accident is presented. In six study sites, 137Cs activity concentrations and heavy metal content in soils, as well as 137Cs, 90Sr and heavy metal concentrations in cones were measured. Doses absorbed in reproduction organs of pine trees were calculated using a dosimetric model. The maximum annual dose absorbed at the most contaminated site was about 130 mGy. Occurrence of aberrant cells scored in the root meristem of germinated seeds collected from pine trees growing on radioactively contaminated territories for over 20 years significantly exceeded the reference levels during all 6 years of the study. The data suggest that cytogenetic effects occur in Scots pine populations due to the radioactive contamination. However, no consistent differences in reproductive ability were detected between the impacted and reference populations as measured by the frequency of abortive seeds. Even though the Scots pine populations have occupied radioactively contaminated territories for two decades, there were no clear indications of adaptation to the radiation, when measured by the number of aberrant cells in root meristems of seeds exposed to an additional acute dose of radiation.
URL: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10646-011-0664-7
Title: Action of the radioactive environment contamination on the age changes of the lipid peroxidation state in the rodent tissues
Author: Shishkina LN, Zagorskaia NG, Shevchenko OG.
Reference: Advances in gerontology = Uspekhi gerontologii / Rossiĭskai͡a akademii͡a nauk, Gerontologicheskoe obshchestvo, 23 (3), p.424-426, Jan 2010
Keywords: Radioactive contamination, lipid peroxidation, rodents
Abstract: Influence of the environment radioactive contamination on the age changes of the lipid peroxidation state in the Microtus oeconomus tissues (rodents caught in the Komi Republic areas and in the Chernobyl accident zone) was studied. The data show that action extent depends on the external y-radiation level in the trapping areas, the animal sex and the supply of the tissue lipids by antioxidants.
URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21137215?dopt=Abstract
Title: Ecological lessons from the Chernobyl accident
Author: Bell, J N B / Shaw, G
Reference: Environment international, 31 (6), p.771-777, Aug 2005
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2005.05.026
Keywords: Chernobyl; Radiocaesium; Illite; Peat; Transfer factors; Vegetation; Upland UK ecosystems; Sheep; Radioactive contamination
Abstract: The Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 not only caused serious ecological problems in both the Ukraine and Belarus, which continue to the present day, but also contaminated a large part of the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere. In this paper an overview is given of the latter problems in upland UK, where ecological problems still remain some 17 years after initial contamination.
URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16005971?dopt=Abstract
