PARENT SESSION
Organized Oral Session 7: Ecological effects of the chernobyl disaster: Genes to ecosystems
Organizer(s): JT Morris, TA Mousseau, and MA Goni
Monday, August 8, 1:30 PM - 5:00 PM, Meeting Room 510a, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal
Temporal trends in radiation doses, survival, and recovery in wildlife populations at Chernobyl.
Chesser, Ronald*,1, Rodgers, Brenda1, 2, Baker, Robert 1, 1 Department of Biological Sciences, Lubbock, Texas, USA2 Department of Life, Environment, and Earth Sciences, Canyon, Texas, USA
ABSTRACT- Reconstruction of fine-scale radioactive fallout patterns in environments within five kilometers of the Chernobyl reactor IV has recently been completed. Measurements of depositions in a variety of habitats have enabled accurate estimation of external radiation doses to wildlife in contaminated areas of the Exclusion Zone. By incorporating the inventory of radionuclides released by the accident, and their respective half-lives, absorbed doses were evaluated for each month since April 1986. Extirpation of local populations of mammals and nesting birds were limited only to narrow stretches of the Western and Northern Traces. The first radioactive cloud released, the Western Trace, would have killed most mammals and birds exposed within a narrow strip (0.5 km to 1.5 km in width) up to five kilometers of the reactor. Because of the sharp boundaries of this plume, animal populations along the margins would have survived with markedly reduced lifetime radiation doses. Lethal doses to wildlife in the Northern Trace were limited to a 2 km2 area of the Pripyat River marshes. Reproductive inhibition would likely have existed over much broader ranges in both plumes. Short half-lives of most released radionuclides were responsible for a rapid dissipation of radiation doses after the accident. Many refugia were created that offered limited survival but were reproductive sinks. We have modeled different modes of dosimetry, dose dissipation, reproduction, and recolonization for various taxa living in the contaminated environment surrounding the Chernobyl reactor complex. Results of these models show rapid recovery of animal populations with minimal measurable, multi-generation effects on genetic material.
Key words: Chernobyl, dosimetry, radiation, recovery