Nagasaki Ferns Show High Mutation Rates

Ferns collected from Nagasaki show unusually high mutation rates and may offer the first evidence that plants were damaged genetically by the atomic bomb dropped there in World War II, according to researchers at the University of Massachusetts.

Plant geneticist Edward J. Klekowski Jr. and biologist Shigeo Masuyama of Tokyo Women’s Christian University grew more than 500 mutants from spores they collected last fall from wild ferns near the hypocenter of the bomb.

While the parent ferns appeared outwardly normal, the scientists found that their spores produced an unusually high number of mutants, Klekowski said.

Some of the plants from which they gathered spores were clones of the ferns damaged by the blast, meaning they were genetically identical, he said. Others are believed to be more than 40 years old, having survived the bomb.