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Wouldn't we expect ecosystems to tolerate low level radiation. Even among humans, the concern is long term cancer risk. It is a feat of modern society that huma
by gizmo686 3y ago
Wouldn't we expect ecosystems to tolerate low level radiation. Even among humans, the concern is long term cancer risk. It is a feat of modern society that humans routinely live long enough for cancer to be a major concern. Most wildlife would probably be dead long before the radiation can kill them.
Not sure how this applies to life like trees. I assume that they are more resilient to radiation in general, as they can live indefinitely, whereas humans seem to have finite time before cancer becomes inevitable.
- cratermoon 3y agoWe would expect them to tolerate background radiation, but evolutionarily I don't see any reason why higher radiation tolerance would be selected for. Certain around the time of things like the Permian/Triassic extinction event, organisms with a higher tolerance for UV would tend to be selected for, but otherwise I would expect other pressures to be more influential.
- Clamchop 3y agoMy hunch on that is it might not need to be selected for, cells having largely the same features. Most animals don't live as long, so they have less time to develop cancers. (Plants and fungi of course get cancers as well but the cells are immobile avoiding metastasis and they don't have single points of failure like organs.) But it's just a hunch.