Impacts of radiation exposure on the bacterial and fungal microbiome of small mammals in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

Environmental impacts of the 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident are much debated, but the effects of radiation on host microbiomes have received little attention to date. We present the first analysis of small mammal gut microbiomes from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in relation to total absorbed dose rate, including both caecum and faeces samples. We provide novel evidence that host species determines fungal community composition, and that associations between microbiome (both bacterial and fungal) communities and radiation exposure vary between host species.

Analysis of I and I in soils of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, 29 years after the deposition of I.

The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ) represents a unique natural laboratory that received significant I contamination across a range of soils and land-use types in a short time period in 1986. Data are presented on I and I in soil samples collected from highly contaminated areas in the CEZ in 2015. The geometric mean (GM) total concentration of stable iodine (I) was 6.

Genome-wide DNA methylation changes in two Brassicaceae species sampled alongside a radiation gradient in Chernobyl and Fukushima.

The long-term radiological impact to the environment of the nuclear accidents in Chernobyl and Fukushima is still under discussion. In the course of spring of 2016 we sampled two Brassicacea plants, Arabidopsis thaliana and Capsella bursa-pastoris native to Ukraine and Japan, respectively, alongside a gradient of radiation within the exclusion and difficult to return zones of Chernobyl (CEZ) and Fukushima (FEZ). Ambient dose rates were similar for both sampling gradients ranging from 0.

Elevated mitochondrial genome variation after 50 generations of radiation exposure in a wild rodent.

Currently, the effects of chronic, continuous low dose environmental irradiation on the mitochondrial genome of resident small mammals are unknown. Using the bank vole () as a model system, we tested the hypothesis that approximately 50 generations of exposure to the Chernobyl environment has significantly altered genetic diversity of the mitochondrial genome. Using deep sequencing, we compared mitochondrial genomes from 131 individuals from reference sites with radioactive contamination comparable to that present in northern Ukraine before the 26 April 1986 meltdown, to populations where substantial fallout was deposited following the nuclear accident.