Radiation protection of the environment: providing knowledge and skills to the user
community
Tom Hinton
French Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Page 1 of 7
18-Mar-14
https://wiki.ceh.ac.uk/x/hI9BBw
Radiation Effects on Plants and Animals
The following material supplements the PowerPoint presentation on Radiological Effects to
Biota. From reading both, students should obtain an introductory level understanding of the
following:
1.
radioactive decay and ionization as it relates to effects of radiation
2.
that the primary target for the induction of biological effects is DNA
3.
the broad similarities in radiation responses among organisms
4.
the wide variation in
responses among organisms
5.
the generation of free radicals and their role in biological effects from radiation
6.
repair of damage from radiation
7.
mis-repair of damage and the fate of mutations within a
population of organisms
8.
fundamental differences in human versus ecological risk analyses from the perspective of
radiation effects
9.
a general idea of the state of knowledge about radiation effects and some of the major
data gaps that need to be addressed
I have plagiarised freely in putting this text together. Some of the material is taken directly from a
chapter I am co-authoring with Peter Airey. The book,
Tropical Radioecology
, is edited by John
Twining at ANSTO in Australia, and should be published in 2011 by Elsevier.
I also copied material from:
Hinton, T. G. 1998. Estimating human and ecological risks from exposure to radiation. Chapter 7
IN:
Risk Assessment: Logic and Measurement
(Ed: M. Newman and C. Strojan). Ann Arbor
Press, Chelsea, MI. pp 143-166.
Hinton, T. G., R. Alexakhin, M. Balonov, N. Gentner, J. Hendry, B. Prister, P. Strand, D.
Woodhead. 2007. Radiation-induced effects on plants and animals.
Findings of the UN
Chernobyl Forum. Health Physics. 93:427-440.
Additionally, I borrowed freely from an excellent IAEA publication that was just issued. I highly
recommend it for those more interested in the radiation biology perspectives:
IAEA, 2010. Radiation biology: A handbook for teachers and students. IAEA-TCS-42. ISSN
1018-5518. Vienna, Austria.