Chernobyl exclusion zone 'not boosting wildlife'
The memorial to the Chernobyl disaster
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Wednesday, 15, Aug 2007 01:38
An exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is not the thriving ecosystem that some believe it to be, a new study has concluded.
The zone was set up following the explosion of one of the nuclear reactors in 1986 which spread radioactive material over a wide geographical area.
A study published today in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters claims that this radiation has resulted in the decline of species richness, abundance and population density of breeding birds within this zone.
This contradicts a recent study from the UN Chernobyl forum which suggested that the exclusion zone was a flourishing ecosystem with an increasing number of rare species.
For the latest study French and US scientists conducted standardised point counts of breeding birds at forest sites around Chernobyl differing in levels of background radiation.
They found that species richness was reduced by more than half when comparing sites within the highest and normal background level of radiation.
Total abundance of birds declined by two-thirds when radiation levels increased, while population density decreased "significantly".
The results are the first census data reported from Chernobyl.
"Species richness, abundance and population density of breeding birds decreased with increasing level of radiation, even after controlling statistically for the effects of potentially confounding factors such as soil type, habitat and height of the vegetation," the researchers write.
"This effect was differential for birds eating soil invertebrates living in the most contaminated top soil layer. These results imply that the ecological effects of Chernobyl on animals are considerably greater than previously assumed."