August 6, 2021 We held an IER Special Seminar.＜by Dr. Yumiko Ishii＞

In some lectures of the Master’s Program of the Major in Environmental Radioactivity, we invite lecturers from other institutes or organizations as guest speakers. We open the lectures to other faculty staff and members as “IER Special Seminars”.

On August 6, the lecture on the subject “Radioecology” by Dr. Yumiko Ishii from NIES was attended by three master’s students of Major in Environmental Radioactivity, as well as some faculty members of the IER. In the lecture, detailed explanations were given with photos and graphs on the research activities mainly conducted by NIES, such as, overview of monitoring of radiocesium in aquatic organisms, radiocesium transfer in freshwater food webs, analysis of radiocesium transfer coefficients to freshwater fish, and radiocesium transfer to masu salmon in the Ota River. The students learned that the radiocesium concentration in freshwater fish is affected by various factors such as feeding habits and body size, and that the contamination mechanisms of radiocesium in freshwater fish differs between lakes and rivers. Dr. Ishii also introduced feeding habits analysis of masu salmon using their stomach contents DNA and food web analysis using stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios, thus the students learned about the radioecological research methods using the latest analytical techniques and statistical analysis.