Food affected by Fukushima disaster
harms animals, even at low-levels of radiation, study shows
 |
| Radiation from Fukushima has already reached the US. Meanwhile Charlestown freaks out about wind turbines. Maybe now they'll start to worry because butterflies are irradiated. |
Butterflies
eating food collected from cities around the Fukushima nuclear meltdown site
showed higher rates of death and disease, according to a study published in the
open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.
Researchers
fed groups of pale blue grass butterflies (Zizeeria maha) leaves from
six different areas at varying distance from the disaster site, and then
investigated the effects on the next generation.
Feeding offspring the same
contaminated leaves as their parents magnified the effects of the radiation.
But offspring fed uncontaminated leaves were mostly like normal butterflies,
and the authors say this shows that decontaminating the food source can save
the next generation.
The
2011 meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant released
substantial amounts of radiation into the surrounding area. Humans were
evacuated, and no significant health effects have been reported, but the
scientists from the University of the Rukyus, Okinawa, Japan, are studying the
impact on the area's wildlife.
Their
study showed that even in these comparatively low levels of radiation, there
was an observable difference in the butterflies' lifespan, depending on the
dose of caesium radiation in their food, which ranged from 0.2 to 161bq/kg. For
comparison, leaves collected in the months after the disaster around 20km from
the site had radiation in the thousands of Bq/kg. Butterflies fed leaves with
higher caesium radiation doses were also smaller and some had morphological
abnormalities such as unusually shaped wings.
Professor
Joji Otaki, University of Rukyus, says: "Wildlife has probably been
damaged even at relatively low doses of radiation, and our research showed that
sensitivity varies among individuals within a species."
In
the second part of the experiment, the researchers looked at the next
generation of butterflies. These were split into groups fed an uncontaminated
diet, and those fed the same diets as their parents.
The
offspring fed an uncontaminated diet had a similar lifespan, irrespective of
the amount of radiation their parents had been exposed to. The only effect
seemed to be that those whose parents had been exposed to higher caesium diets
had smaller forewings. But those fed the same contaminated diet as their
parents showed magnified effects.
The
authors say that this shows that the effects of eating contaminated food can be
significant, and that they can be passed on, but are minimized if the next
generation have an unaffected diet.
Professor
Otaki says: "Our study demonstrated that eating contaminated foods could
cause serious negative effects on organisms. Such negative effects may be
passed down the generations. On the bright side, eating non-contaminated food
improves the negative effects, even in the next generation."
Story Source:
The
above story is based on materials provided by BioMed Central. Note:
Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference:
1.
Chiyo Nohara, Wataru
Taira, Atsuki Hiyama, Akira Tanahara, Toshihiro Takatsuji, Joji M Otaki. Ingestion
of radioactively contaminated diets for two generations in the pale grass blue
butterfly. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 2014; 14 (1): 193 DOI: 10.1186/s12862-014-0193-0
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BioMed Central. "Food affected by Fukushima disaster harms
animals, even at low-levels of radiation, study shows." Science Daily, 23 September 2014.
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140923090244.htm>.