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mrbluze writes:
"Rachel Nuwer from the Smithsonian Mag gives a good summary around a paper entitled "Highly reduced mass loss rates and increased litter layer in radioactively contaminated areas" (Oecologia, March 2014):
In the areas with no radiation, 70 to 90 percent of the leaves were gone after a year. But in places where more radiation was present, the leaves retained around 60 percent of their original weight.
... the Chernobyl area is at risk of fire, and 27 years' worth of leaf litter, (researcher) Mousseau and his colleagues think, would likely make a good fuel source for such a forest fire. This poses a more worrying problem than just environmental destruction: Fires can potentially redistribute radioactive contaminants to places outside of the exclusion zone, Mousseau says. 'There is growing concern that there could be a catastrophic fire in the coming years.'
A forest fire burning radioactive plant debris could be catastrophic. The Fukushima disaster is likely to have the same problems locally, but it poses additional risks because radioactive water continues to flow into the sea at an alarming rate, which will likely affect oceanic bacterial levels in a similar way."
(Score: 1) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday March 18 2014, @05:43PM
Before anyone attempts to deal with the results of the paper, they should try to verify the results. This paper is not backed up by theory, is not repeatable in the lab (and it's a very easy thing to check in a lab - expose identical leaf matter to different levels of radiation and see what happens) and is not consistent with the observations of other scientists.
Have you actually looked at the abstract? The experiment seems pretty straightforward to me. The observed physical effect supports their hypothesis.
Abstract is Here: [springer.com]
The effects of radioactive contamination from Chernobyl on decomposition of plant material still remain unknown. We predicted that decomposition rate would be reduced in the most contaminated sites due to an absence or reduced densities of soil invertebrates. If microorganisms were the main agents responsible for decomposition, exclusion of large soil invertebrates should not affect decomposition. In September 2007 we deposited 572 bags with uncontaminated dry leaf litter from four species of trees in the leaf litter layer at 20 forest sites around Chernobyl that varied in background radiation by more than a factor 2,600. Approximately one quarter of these bags were made of a fine mesh that prevented access to litter by soil invertebrates. These bags were retrieved in June 2008, dried and weighed to estimate litter mass loss. Litter mass loss was 40 % lower in the most contaminated sites relative to sites with a normal background radiation level for Ukraine. Similar reductions in litter mass loss were estimated for individual litter bags, litter bags at different sites, and differences between litter bags at pairs of neighboring sites differing in level of radioactive contamination. Litter mass loss was slightly greater in the presence of large soil invertebrates than in their absence. The thickness of the forest floor increased with the level of radiation and decreased with proportional loss of mass from all litter bags. These findings suggest that radioactive contamination has reduced the rate of litter mass loss, increased accumulation of litter, and affected growth conditions for plants.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Alphatool on Tuesday March 18 2014, @09:21PM
I've not only read the abstract, I have read the paper too. Once you get into the details the statistics don't stand up, and neither do the claims of a dose response. The statements in the abstract massively overstate the results that were found, particularly any link between radiation exposure and any effects. It did find a link between the thickness of the forest floor and decrease in mass loss from the bags, but there are lots of better explanations (such as variations in sunlight and wind) to explain this than radiation, and these weren't investigated. Instead, radiation was blamed without any evidence. It's very shoddy work.