XVI International Botanical Congess

Aquatic ecosystems within the Chernobyl NPP exclusion zone are efficient collectors for the wide range of radionuclides, which are deposited in bottom sediments after their intake by aquatic environments. High water plants play a major role in the process - they have some capacity for accumulation of radionuclides. After death and bio-degradation, these plants remove these radionuclides from ecosystems' cycles. The importance of macrophytes in processes of self-purification of aquatic ecosystems is associated with their capacity to accumulate radionuclides, which depends on bio-mass and patterns of the plants' communities. When radionuclides are washed out from watershed areas, phytocenosis of high aquatic plants operate as natural biological fileters - i.e. they collect radionuclides, sediment them in bottom deposits (preventing, thus, their further migration). In water bodies of the Chernobyl NPP exclusion zone, air-water plants water-torch and bur-reed play the major role in formation of srontium-90 and caesium-137 depots.