1st Edition

Environmental Radiobiology

Edited By Paul N. Schofield, Carmel E. Mothersill Copyright 2024

    This book focuses on the impacts of anthropogenic radiation on wildlife and ecosystems and provides an in-depth look at the approaches and available tools we can use to gain information about biological effects of radiation in the environment.

    The nuclear accidents in Chornobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011 focussed the attention of the world on the vulnerability of ecosystems to radiation. In Chornobyl, there still remains an exclusion zone where levels are considered to be too high for people and impacts on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems can still be measured 35 years later. In the area impacted by the Fukushima disaster, intense remediation is still under way at tremendous cost and causing widespread disruption to the environment. That accident impacted the terrestrial and marine ecosystems. In both accidents it became obvious that a radiation protection framework focussing on protection of “humans” (a single species) and using evacuation as a key strategy, was not sufficient to protect the natural environment. The complexity of ecosystems makes developing a protection framework very challenging but in order to even start the process it is vital to gather information about likely impacts of low dose exposures on wildlife and to develop monitoring tools to measure changes over time. This book contains reviews and original research aimed at filling our knowledge gaps about these important areas.

    Environmental Radiobiology will be a key resource for academics, researchers, and advanced students of Radiobiology, Radioecology, Biology, Ecology, Biomedicine and Research Methods. The chapters included in this book were originally published as a special issue of International Journal of Radiation Biology.

    Introduction

    Paul Schofield and Carmel Mothersill

    1. Neglecting the ecosystemic dimension of life hinders efficient environmental protection from radiation and other hazards

    François Bréchignac

    2. What makes radiation protection so challenging?

    Lawrence A. Kapustka

    3. Insight into the evolutionary profile of radio-resistance among insects having intrinsically evolved defence against radiation toxicity

    Jagdish Gopal Paithankar, Tanhaji Sandu Ghodke, and Rajashekhar K. Patil 

    4. The sine qua non of the fish invitrome today and tomorrow in environmental radiobiology

    Nguyen T. K. Vo

    5. Environmental radiobiology of amphibians – knowledge gaps to be filled using cell lines

    Nguyen T. K. Vo

    6. Radiation-induced transgenerational effects in animals

    Yuri E. Dubrova and Elena I. Sarapultseva

    7. A review of the impact on the ecosystem after ionizing irradiation: wildlife population

    Georgetta Cannon and Juliann G. Kiang

    8. Impact of nonionizing electromagnetic radiation on male infertility: an assessment of the mechanism and consequences

    Rohit Gautam, Eepsita Priyadarshini, JayPrakash Nirala, and Paulraj Rajamani

    9. Environmental and industrial developments in radiation cataractogenesis

    Lukasz Laskowski, David Williams, Colin Seymour, and Carmel Mothersill

    10. Bio-acoustic signaling; exploring the potential of sound as a mediator of low-dose radiation and stress responses in the environment

    Bruno F. E. Matarèse, Jigar Lad, Colin Seymour, Paul N. Schofield, and Carmel Mothersill

    11. Radiation induces stress and transgenerational impacts in the cricket, Acheta domesticus

    Xiaobing Li and C. D. Rollo

    12. Evaluation of interactive effects of phosphorus-32 and copper on marine and freshwater bivalve mollusks

    Emily L. Vernon, Michael N. Moore, Tim P. Bean, and Awadhesh N. Jha 

    13. Combined action of gamma radiation and exposure to copper ions on Lemna minor L

    Irina S. Bodnar and Evgenia V. Cheban         

    14. Copper uptake in adult rainbow trout irradiated during early life stages and in non-irradiated bystander trout which swam with the irradiated fish

    Richard Smith, Sunita Nadella, Richard Moccia, Colin Seymour, and Carmel Mothersill

    15. A pilot study of radiation-induced bystander effect in radio-adapting frogs at a radiologically contaminated site located on the chalk river laboratories property

    Nguyen T. K. Vo, Harleen Singh, Marilyne Stuart, Colin B. Seymour, and Carmel E. Mothersill

    16. Environmental radiation on large Japanese field mice in Fukushima reduced colony forming potential in hematopoietic progenitor cells without inducing genomic instability

    Kentaro Ariyoshi, Tomisato Miura, Kosuke Kasai, Valerie Swee Ting Goh, Yohei Fujishima, Akifumi Nakata, Atsushi Takahashi, Yoshinaka Shimizu, Hisashi Shinoda, Hideaki Yamashiro, Colin Seymour, Carmel Mothersill, and Mitsuaki A. Yoshida

    17. Assessment of chromosome aberrations in large Japanese field mice (Apodemus speciosus) in Namie Town, Fukushima

    Yohei Fujishima, Akifumi Nakata, Risa Ujiie, Kosuke Kasai, Kentaro Ariyoshi, Valerie Swee Ting Goh, Kojun Suzuki, Hirofumi Tazoe, Masatoshi Yamada, Mitsuaki A. Yoshida, and Tomisato Miura

    18. Isolation of the effects of alpha-related components from total effects of radium at low doses

    Chandula Fernando, Soo Hyun Byun, Xiaopei Shi, Colin B. Seymour, and Carmel E. Mothersill

    19. Investigation of Radon Sources, Health Hazard and Risks assessment for children using analytical and geospatial techniques in District Bannu (Pakistan)

    Huma Shakoor, Noor Jehan, Sardar Khan, and Nimat Ullah Khattak

    20. From tangled banks to toxic bunnies; a reflection on the issues involved in developing an ecosystem approach for environmental radiation protection

    Carmel E. Mothersill, Deborah H. Oughton, Paul N. Schofield, Michael Abend, Christelle Adam-Guillermin, Kentaro Ariyoshi, Nicholas A. Beresford, Andrea Bonisoli-Alquati, Jason Cohen, Yuri Dubrova, Stanislav A. Geras’kin, Tanya Helena Hevrøy, Kathryn A. Higley, Nele Horemans, Awadhesh N. Jha, Lawrence A. Kapustka, Juliann G. Kiang, Balázs G. Madas, Gibin Powathil, Elena I. Sarapultseva, Colin B. Seymour, Nguyen T. K. Vo, and Michael D. Wood

    Biography

    Paul N. Schofield is the University Professor of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Cambridge, UK, and an Adjunct Professor at The Jackson Laboratory, USA. His research focus is on experimental and informatics approaches to understanding human disease using model organisms. He has a long-standing interest in the biological effects of low dose ionizing radiation and FAIR data in radiobiology.

    Carmel E. Mothersill is an Environmental Radiobiologist at McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada where she studies low dose radiation effects and development of biomarkers for wildlife. Her main goal is to identify ecosystem level bioindicators of environmental impact.