Abstract
Understanding the long-term behavior of radionuclides in organisms is important for estimating possible associated risks to human beings and ecosystems. As radioactive cesium (137Cs) can be accumulated in organisms and has a long physical half-life, it is very important to understand its long-term decay in organisms; however, the underlying mechanisms determining the decay process are little known. We performed a meta-analysis to collect published data on the long-term 137Cs decay process in fish species to estimate biological (metabolic rate) and ecological (trophic position, habitat, and diet type) influences on this process. From the linear mixed models, we found that 1) trophic position could predict the day of maximum 137Cs activity concentration in fish; and 2) the metabolic rate of the fish species and environmental water temperature could predict ecological half-lives and decay rates for fish species. These findings revealed that ecological and biological traits are important to predict the long-term decay process of 137Cs activity concentration in fish.
Highlights
Atmospheric nuclear tests in the 1960 s emitted large amounts of radionuclides, including radioactive strontium (90Sr), iodine (131I), and cesium (134Cs, 137Cs)
We focused on fish taxa to test the above hypothesis because many studies related to 137Cs activity concentration in fish bodies have been published, especially after the Chernobyl fallout accident of 1986, and the Fishbase dataset can provide the data on trophic position and the other ecological traits for estimating the effects of ecological traits on the decay process
We found that the long-term decay process of 137Cs activity concentration in fish bodies was affected by trophic position and metabolic rate, which were determined by body mass and inverse temperature of the species
Summary
Atmospheric nuclear tests in the 1960 s emitted large amounts of radionuclides, including radioactive strontium (90Sr), iodine (131I), and cesium (134Cs, 137Cs). We focused on fish taxa to test the above hypothesis because many studies related to 137Cs activity concentration in fish bodies have been published, especially after the Chernobyl fallout accident of 1986, and the Fishbase dataset can provide the data on trophic position and the other ecological traits (habitat and diet types) for estimating the effects of ecological traits on the decay process. We performed a meta-analysis using published datasets to estimate how ecological and biological traits determine the longterm decay processes of 137Cs in fish bodies From this analysis, we can reveal the general underlying mechanisms of the long-term decay processes and predict the decay processes of radioactive cesium in fish bodies
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