Birds Near Chernobyl are Evolving to Adapt to the Radiation in the Exclusion Zone

It turns out that evolution may be at play in the exclusion zone around Chernobyl, the location of the massive nuclear accident that occurred almost 30 years ago. Scientists have discovered that the birds in this exclusion zone are adapting to, and even may be benefiting from, long-term exposure to radiation.

The disaster at Chernobyl occurred on April 26 1986. That's when the nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded, creating what is claimed as the worst nuclear disaster in history. It has catastrophic environmental consequences, and the region still remains heavily contaminated with radiation. Yet this also causes the area to be an accidental ecological experiment.

"Previous studies of wildlife at Chernobyl showed that chronic radiation exposure depleted antioxidants and increased oxidative damage," said Ismael Galvan, one of the researchers, in a news release. "We found the opposite-the antioxidant levels increased and oxidative stress decreased with increasing background radiation."

In fact, previous lab experiments have shown that humans and other animals can adapt to radiation. Prolonged exposure to low doses of radiation can increase an organism's resistance to larger, subsequent doses. Yet this particular feature has never been seen outside the lab.

In order to find out how radiation was impacting bird populations in the area, the researchers used mist nets to capture 152 birds from 16 different species at eight sites close to Chernobyl. They then measured background radiation levels at each site and took blood and feather samples from the birds before releasing them.

So what did they find? It turns out that with increasing background radiation, a bird's body condition and glutathione levels increase. In addition, oxidative stress and DNA damage decreased.

"The findings are important because they tell us more about the different species' ability to adapt to environmental challenges such as Chernobyl and Fukushima," said Galvan in a news release.

The findings reveal a little bit more about how organisms adapt to radiation over time.

The findings are published in the journal Functional Ecology.