Meeting Abstract
The long-term effects of radioactive exposure from nuclear accidents on environments are virtually unknown and there is a need for assessments of radiation effects on living organisms. Past studies have found an increased frequency of developmental abnormalities in butterflies exposed to various levels of radioactive contamination. We collected butterfly species from clean and radiation-contaminated sites around Chernobyl, Ukraine and Fukushima, Japan. Morphometric analyses were used to identify variation in wing vein patterns, with fluctuating asymmetry (FA), the variation between the left and right wings, as our primary measurement of developmental instability related to the mutagenic effects of radiation. We analyzed the size and shape of the wings from each species as indexed by centroid size and Procrustes distance. Our preliminary results indicate that there is no significant relationship between FA and background radiation, however there was significant variation in wing centroid size between clean and irradiated sites, with butterflies exposed to long-term radiation having an overall smaller size. The results for Procrustes distance were predominately inconclusive, with varying results for different species and minimal levels of significance. This project is set to continue for several more years in order to create a stronger longitudinal study.
