Strontium-90 and Caesium-137 Activity Concentrations in Bats in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

Overview

Journal Radiat Environ Biophys

Specialties Biophysics
Environmental Health
Oncology
Radiology

Date 2010 Aug 18

PMID 20714905

Citations 5

Authors

Sergey Gashchak

Nicholas Anthony Beresford

Andrey Maksimenko

Anton S Vlaschenko

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Bats are a protected species and as such may be an object of protection in radiological assessments of the environment. However, there have previously been only few radioecological studies of species of bats. In this paper, results for >140 measurements of (90)Sr and (137)Cs in 10 species of bats collected within the Chernobyl zone are presented. There was some indication of a decreasing transfer of (90)Sr with increasing deposition, although this was inconsistent across species and explained little of the observed variability. There was no difference between male and female bats in the transfer (expressed as the ratio of whole-body activity concentrations to those in soil) of either radionuclide. There was considerable variability in transfer across all species groups. At two sites where there were sufficient data, Eptesicus serotinus was found to have higher transfer than other species.

Citing Articles

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