Food Impacted by Fukushima Disaster May Harm Butterflies and Other Animals

It turns out that food collected around the site of the Fukushima nuclear meltdown may be negatively impacting butterflies. Scientists have found that pale blue grass butterflies that were fed from regions around the disaster site had higher rates of death and disease.

In 2011, the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant experienced a meltdown, releasing radiation into the surrounding environment. People were evacuated, and no significant health effects were reported. Now, though, scientists are studying the impacts of this nuclear meltdown on the surrounding wildlife.

In this case, the researchers looked at how eating leaves with low levels of radiation might impact the pale grass blue butterfly. The leaves were collected in 2012, a year after the disaster, from six areas that were between 59 km to 1,760 km from the site.

"Wildlife has probably been damaged even at relatively low doses of radiation, and our research showed that sensitivity varies among individuals within a species," said Joji Otaki, one of the researchers, in a news release.

The scientists found that even with comparatively low levels of radiation, there was a difference in the butterflies' lifespan, depending on the dose of caesium radiation in their food. The researchers then looked at a second generation of butterflies, splitting them into groups fed an uncontaminated diet and those fed the same diets as their parents. The offspring fed an uncontaminated diet had a similar lifespan, irrespective of the amount of radiation their parents were exposed to. Those who were fed the same diet as their parents, though, had magnified effects.

"Our study demonstrated that eating contaminated foods could cause serious negative effects on organisms," said Otaki. "Such negative effects may be passed down the generations. On the bright side, eating non-contaminated food improves the negative effects, even in the next generation."

The findings are published in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.