Resources
The Red Forest The Red Forest is the name given to the surrounding forested areas around Chernobyl because of how the pine trees in the area took on a redish brown coloring after having absorbed large amounts of radiation. It was not only the pine trees that suffered haevy losses. Almost all of the vegitation that came into contact with the larger doses of radiation died shortly after the exposure. As a result competiton between the survivng herbivores increased dramatically as they competed for the remaining vegitationleft available to them.
Groundwater and Rivers The radiation not only permiated the air and vegiation, it leached heavily into the water and was spread with startiling speed. With the water sources contaminated it only served to help hasten the death of more producers and drive more animals to emigrate from the area in search of more clean water sources or to compete over the very few remaining relatively clean water sources left in the area. One of the most heavily hit water sources was the Pripyat River that flows almost directly next to
Animals Large numbers of animals died off in the initial explosion of the power plant but for the ones that did survive thier fate was no better. With both their water resources contaminated and the producers they ate passing along radioisotiopes into their own bodies the entire ecosystem quickly became contaminated on a wide spread scale. With so many of the herbivores dying the competition amog the prediators increased greatly as they were forced more and more to compete for food and not starve to death.
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