Role of filamentous fungi in migration of radioactive cesium in the Fukushima forest soil environment

Onuki, Toshihiko; Sakamoto, Fuminori  ; Kozai, Naofumi   ; Namba, Kenji*; Neda, Hitoshi*; Sasaki, Yoshito ; Niizato, Tadafumi  ; Watanabe, Naoko*; Kozaki, Tamotsu*

The fate of radioactive Cs deposited after the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident and its associated radiological impacts are largely dependent on its mobility from surface soils to forest ecosystems. We measured the accumulation of radioactive Cs in the fruit bodies of wild fungi in the forest at Iidate, Fukushima, Japan. The transfer factors (TFs) of radioactive Cs from soil to the fruit bodies of wild fungi were between 10 to 10, a range similar to those reported for the fruit bodies collected in Europe after the Chernobyl accident and in parts of Japan contaminated by nuclear bomb test fallout. Comparison of the TFs of the wild mushroom and that of the fungal hyphae of 704 stock strains grown on agar medium containing nutrients and radioactive Cs showed that the TFs of wild mushroom were lower. TF was less than 0.1 after addition of the minerals zeolite, vermiculite, phlogopite, smectite, or illite of 1% weight to the agar medium. These results indicate that the presence of minerals decrease Cs uptake by fungi grown in the agar medium.