War in Ukraine threatens an intriguing piece of wildlife science

THE MELTDOWN in 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine was a human tragedy. But it was also a biological opportunity. Since 2000 Timothy Mousseau of the University of South Carolina and Anders Moller of the Ecology, Systematics and Evolution Laboratory in Orsay, near Paris, have run the Chernobyl Research Initiative Lab in collaboration with a dozen Ukrainian colleagues. They have looked at how animals and plants in what is now, by default, a wildlife sanctuary, have adjusted to their radioactive surroundings.Over the years, they have published more than 120 papers. They began by studying the genetics of barn swallows (pictured) living at varying distances from the reactor. They discovered that mutations made the birds’ body sizes more variable in areas of high radiation. They then demonstrated that populations of colourful birds have declined more than those of less colourful ones, supporting a long-standing contention that bright colours are used as an honest signal of good health (something birds are unlikely to enjoy in such a hostile place). They have even found evidence that birds around Chernobyl have evolved radiation tolerance, by showing that those living there have higher population densities than conspecifics in similar circumstances near the Fukushima plant in Japan. This melted down a mere 11 years ago, rather than 36, allowing the locals less time to have adapted.