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Phylogeny can be used to make useful predictions of soil-to-plant transfer factors for radionuclides

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Abstract

Soil-to-plant transfer of radionuclides can be related to plant evolutionary history (phylogeny). For some species and radionuclides the effect is significant enough to be useful in predicting Transfer Factors (TFs). Here a Residual Maximum Likelihood (REML)-based mixed model and a recent plant phylogeny are used to compile data on soil-to-plant transfer of radionuclides and to show how the phylogeny can be used to fill gaps in TFs. Using published data, generic means for TFs are used to anchor the data from REML modelling and hence predict TFs for important groups of plants. Radionuclides of Cs are used as an example. With a generic soil-to-plant TF of 0.07, TFs of 0.035 and 0.085 are predicted for monocot and eudicot gaps, respectively. Also demonstrated is how the known effects of soil conditions can be predicted across plant groups—predicted Cs TFs for gap-filling across all flowering plants are calculated for sandy loams with and without waterlogging. Predictions of TFs for Sr, Co, Cl and Ru are also given. Overall, the results show that general predictions of TFs based on phylogeny are possible—a significant contribution to gap filling for TFs.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Andrew Mead of Warwick HRI, The University of Warwick, Wellesbourne, Warwick, UK who first wrote the Genstat programme and Hildegarde Vandenhove of Studiecentrum voor Kernenergie: Centre d’Étude de l’énergie Nucléaire (SCK: CEN), Boeretang, Mol, Belgium for the raw data for the U compilation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Research in Plant Science, School of Life Sciences, University of the West of England, Coldharbour Lane, Frenchay, Bristol, BS16 1QY, UK

    Neil J. Willey

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  1. Neil J. Willey
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Correspondence to Neil J. Willey.

Additional information

This paper is based on a presentation made at the second meeting of the Wildlife Transfer Coefficient Handbook Working Group of the IAEA EMRAS II programme (held at the IAEA, Vienna, 22–24 July 2009).

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Supplementary material 1 (XLSX 162 kb)

Appendix

Appendix

The Genstat program used here for re-analyzing previously published Cs data (Willey et al. 2005). For details see text.

  1. 1.

    job ‘Analysis of Cs data—Neil W’

  2. 2.

    unit [943]

  3. 3.

    fact [lev = 35] study

  4. 4.

    fact [lev = 273] taxon

  5. 5.

    open ‘I:caesium data.prn’; ch = 2; fi = in

  6. 6.

    skip [2] 1

  7. 7.

    read [ch = 2] study, taxon, concent

  8. 8.

    close ch = 2

  9. 9.

    tabu [cl = study] concent; mean = mtab; var = vtab; nobs = ntab

  10. 10.

    calc sdtab = sqrt(vtab)

  11. 11.

    calc cvtab = sdtab * 100/mtab

  12. 12.

    print ntab, mtab, vtab, sdtab, cvtab; dec = 0,4(4); fie = 6,4(13)

  13. 13.

    calc lconcent = log(concent)

  14. 14.

    vcomponents [fixed = taxon] random = study

  15. 15.

    reml [print = model, components, Waldtests; method = fisher] lconcent

  16. 16.

    vkeep terms = taxon; means = tmeans

  17. 17.

    calc etmeans = exp(tmeans)

  18. 18.

    print tmeans, etmeans

  19. 19.

    vtable table = tmeans; variate = mconcent; class = !p(mtaxon)

  20. 20.

    unit [273]

  21. 21.

    fact genus, family, order, superorder, group, class

  22. 22.

    open ‘I:caesium phylogeny.prn’; ch = 2; fi = in

  23. 23.

    skip [2] 1

  24. 24.

    read [ch = 2] genus, family, order, superorder, group, class; skip = 1,5(0)

  25. 25.

    close ch = 2

  26. 26.

    treat class/group/superorder/order/family/genus

  27. 27.

    anov [fact = 5;fprob = yes] mconcent

  28. 28.

    endjob

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Willey, N.J. Phylogeny can be used to make useful predictions of soil-to-plant transfer factors for radionuclides. Radiat Environ Biophys 49, 613–623 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00411-010-0320-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00411-010-0320-2

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