In the 33 years since the world's largest nuclear disaster at Chernobyl Power Plant, the area around the abandoned city has become a fascinating laboratory for biologists. In the absence of humans, plants and animals have reclaimed the landscape.
On first glance it seems the wildlife there was thriving. But if you dig a little deeper, according to Canadian scientist Timothy Mousseau, what you see paints a more disturbing picture.
He's been part of a long-term collaboration looking at the effects of prolonged, residual radiation on wildlife.
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In Mousseau's
most recent study, he wanted to see what impact the varying radiation levels were having on the areas' rodents in terms of their genetic and physiological fitness, as well as looking at their population level as a whole.
"We've been tracking these small rodents," which Mousseau points out are near the bottom of the food chain for animals like wolves and foxes.
"The bottom line is that when you look at what the populations are doing in both the radioactive areas and the non-radioactive areas of the zone, it's very, very clear that the radiation is reducing fertility rates [and] reducing population sizes," added Mousseau.
Of the
dozens of scientific papers Mousseau has published on the effects of radiation on the area's wildlife, he said they know the most the birds.
One of the early questions they were interested in was whether the birds had developed any kind of adaptation to deal with the effects of the radiation.
"We thought, well maybe there is some kind of magical adaptations that allow these birds to tolerate the radiation," said Mousseau. "We went to test that and quickly found out that there was no such evidence of any kind of [direct] adaptation."
Instead, he found the birds, especially in the more radioactive areas, showed many abnormalities:
"Almost everything we've looked at ends up showing some consequence in the more radioactive areas," said Mousseau.
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