It has long been known that radiation can cause mutations in the body, that is, changes in DNA, and also has other consequences for the body. At the same time, science does not know much about how radioactive contamination affects wild animals and birds. The Chernobyl zone provides a unique opportunity to get more information about this. Almost 40 years have passed since the disaster, and during all this time biodiversity has been exposed to harmful radiation. In a recent study, scientists decided to focus on songbirds from the Chernobyl zone – the great tit (Parus major) and the pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), which live throughout Europe. As it turned out, radiation actually caused some changes in their bodies.
Scientists have discovered changes in the bodies of birds living in the exclusion zone. Photo source: iflscience.com
How radiation changed birds in the Chernobyl zone
As the researchers themselves explain, radiological contamination is a serious additional stressor that organisms have to cope with throughout their lives. This leads to many consequences even beyond any changes in DNA, but these consequences are still poorly understood by science. For example, it was only recently that scientists learned that real mutant wolves live in Chernobyl.
Scientists first learned that radiation also has serious consequences for birds in 2011. During the study, the authors analyzed 550 birds from the Chernobyl zone, which belonged to 48 different species. As it turned out, even a relatively low level of radiation led to a decrease in the size of the head and brain. That is, radiation for some reason prevented their development.
In the Chernobyl zone, wild animals have been exposed to radiation for almost 40 years. Photo source: theguardian.com
The changes discovered were so strong that they most likely affected the mental abilities of the birds. True, this is only an assumption by scientists, since it is not so easy to determine the cognitive abilities of wild birds and compare them with other birds.
What happened to tits in the exclusion zone
To learn even more about consequences of radiation for birds, this time scientists placed several birdhouses in two different areas of the Chernobyl zone — one had high radiation contamination, and the second had relatively low radiation contamination. The feathered inhabitants of these birdhouses were compared with each other using a series of tests.
The first thing that caught the researchers’ eye was that there were far fewer nests in heavily infested areas. However, it is still unknown how and why radiation affected their populations. The researchers did not find any significant differences in the reproduction or health of the chicks. But they noticed that birds from contaminated areas had a greater variety of insects in their diet. Taking this into account, there should be more nests here.
Birds from Chernobyl have smaller heads and brains than other birds. Photo source: sputnik.kz
In addition, some other differences were found between the birds. DNA samples from bird droppings showed a completely different composition of the intestinal microbiome, as the authors of the work reported at the annual conference of the Society for Experimental Biology in Prague. True, radiation did not affect the diversity of bacteria in the intestines, but only changed their proportions.
These changes may seem insignificant, but it should be kept in mind that the composition of the intestinal microbiome is one of the key factors determining health. Therefore, this discovery may provide further insight into how radiation contamination may affect the health of birds.
“The results obtained provide an interesting background for understanding the ecology of birds in radiologically contaminated areas. They give us valuable new information about the effects of radiation on young birds, an area of research that has been unclear until now,” says Sameli Piirto, a researcher at the University of Jyväskylä and one of the study’s authors.
According to the scientists, The study of the consequences of radioactive contamination provides an understanding of how humanity and nature as a whole will be able to withstand global radiation pollution, for example, in the event of a nuclear war. As we have previously said, even in the event of a massive exchange of nuclear strikes between the United States and Russia, humanity, and especially life on the planet, will not disappear, but the conditions will be difficult.
Be sure to visit our Zen and Telegram channels, here The most interesting news from the world of science and the latest discoveries await you!
Finally, we note that a unique ecosystem has currently formed in the Exclusion Zone. For example, Chernobyl dogs live here, which are different from any other dogs on Earth. You can read more about these animals at the link.