Exploring taxonomic relationships corresponding to radiocaesium transfer to marine biota

A common means of quantifying the transfer of radionuclides in ecosystems is through the application of concentration ratios (CRs). Given the large number of organism-radionuclide combinations that may require assessment, it is perhaps not surprising that for many there are no data. In these circumstances various ‘extrapolation’ approaches have been suggested to derive a suitable value. One potentially useful approach is based upon the hypothesis that some form of underlying taxonomic and/or phylogentic relationship exists in relation to ecological transfer of radionuclides. The objective of this study was to explore if taxonomic classifications could be used to explain variation in the transfer of radiocaesium to a wide range of marine organisms based on field observations analysed using Residual Maximum Likelihood (REML) mixed-model regression.