Time-dependent trends of artificial radionuclides in biota of the Yenisei River (Siberia, Russia)

Temporal trends of plutonium and radiocesium in three fish species of the Yenisei River (Siberia, Russia)

“…Plutonium accumulates in the ecosystem over time due to the long half-life of its isotopes: 87.7 years for 238 Pu, 2.41 × 10 4 years for 239 Pu, and 6.54 × 10 3 years for 240 Pu (Chu et al 1999); it is the main contributor to long-term radiotoxicity as a source of α-radiation. Plutonium content was not reported in previous studies of arti cial radionuclides in sh of the Yenisei (Nosov et al 1993;Vakulovsky et al 1995;Buryakova et al 2020;Zotina et al 2019Zotina et al , 2022a. Plutonium concentrations in biota and sediments of the Yenisei considerably increased after the upsurge in the controlled discharge of plutonium from the MCC in 2018 (Zotina et al 2021).…”

“…(Siberian dace), and Esox lucius L. (Northern pike). Pike is an obligatory piscivorous sh feeding in the Yenisei primarily on small benthic sh (stone sculpin Paracottus knerii Dybowski and Siberian stone loach Barbatula toni Dybowski) and Siberian dace (Zotina et al 2019). Siberian dace is an omnivorous sh, feeding on benthic invertebrates among other food items.…”

“…Grayling ingests the caddis y larvae along with their conical tubular cases built of mineral particles (Zuev et al 2017). In our previous publications (Zuev et al 2017;Zotina et al 2016Zotina et al , 2019, we used the speci c name Thymallus arcticus for grayling caught in the middle reaches of the Yenisei River. In the present work, we use the speci c name Thymallus baicalensis to designate grayling from the middle reaches of the Yenisei, in accordance with the recently published study by Weiss et al (2020).…”

“…Fish were collected from the Yenisei River by the local shermen in 2011-2020 and provided for this research as frozen samples. The sampling site was located about 10-15 km downstream of the radioactive discharge site of the Miningand-Chemical Combine (Zotina et al 2019). Fish samples were also collected from the Yenisei at a reference site about 100 km upstream of the radioactive discharge site.…”

“…No consistent temporal trend of radiocesium activity released annually over the last two decades has been observed. The contents of radiocesium in sh of the Yenisei were studied recently, but no temporal trends were revealed either (Zotina et al 2019). The purpose of this work was to study the contents and temporal variations of plutonium and radiocesium in three important sport and subsistence sh species of the Yenisei River occupying different positions in a trophic net, taking into account annual inputs of plutonium and radiocesium to the river.…”