Are the dogs of Chernobyl evolving right in front of us? That’s a question some scientists have been asking in new research that has been keeping tabs on the wild animals roaming around the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ).
Ever since the Chernobyl disaster in the 1980s, scientists have been keeping a close eye on the CEZ. The goal was to see how animals within the area adapted to the increased radiation, and so far, those observations have netted some interesting finds.
For instance, one study published back in 2016 found that Eastern tree frogs, which are typically green, had actually become more black in the CEZ, as if adapting to the environment. These discoveries, alongside other observations, made scientists wonder about the dogs of Chernobyl.
Now, according to a new study published in PLOS One, something is happening to the wild dog population within the CEZ. The team compared the genome of dogs found 10 miles from the CEZ to dogs found in regions of Russian, Poland, and other nearby countries.
They found that the dogs of Chernobyl didn’t appear to have any major mutations present that weren’t found in other dogs outside the CEZ. This is interesting, as though these dogs aren’t the same ones that were present for the Chernobyl Meltdown in 1986, they should still show signs of mutations for survival purposes, despite being 30 generations removed.
But they don’t. This raises questions about how they might differ from dogs in other regions. While the study doesn’t have a conclusion just yet, it will act as a foundation to dig deeper into our understanding of life inside of radioactive areas, especially with prior studies claiming the opposite.
Considering there are a number of radioactive areas in the world, having knowledge of these changes could help us gain a deeper understanding of the effects of radiation on our world and the animals that we share it with.
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