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In 2017, the Clean Futures Fund began holding veterinary clinics for the local dogs, providing care, administering vaccines, and spaying and neutering the animals.
2017年，清洁未来基金会开始为当地的狗开办兽医诊所，提供护理、接种疫苗、为动物进行绝育。
The researchers piggybacked on these clinics to collect blood samples from 302 dogs living in different locations in and around the exclusion zone.
研究人员利用这些诊所，收集了居住在隔离区及其周围不同地点的302只狗的血液样本。
Nearly half of the dogs lived in the immediate vicinity of the power plant, while the other half lived in Chernobyl City, a lightly occupied residential area about nine miles away.
近一半的狗住在紧挨在核电站的地方，另一半的狗住在切尔诺贝利市，这是大约9英里外一个人口较少的居民区。
Although there was some overlap between the canine populations, in general, the power plant dogs were genetically distinct from the Chernobyl City dogs, the researchers found.
研究人员发现，尽管狗的种群之间有一些重叠，但总的来说，核电站的狗在基因上与切尔诺贝利市的狗截然不同。
There appeared to be little gene flow between the two groups, suggesting that they rarely interbred.
这两个群体之间的基因流通似乎很少，表明它们很少进行杂交。
"I was completely surprised by the near total differentiation between the two populations, the fact that they've existed really in relative isolation for quite some time," said Timothy Mousseau, a biologist at the University of South Carolina and the other senior author of the study.
"这两个狗群之间近乎彻底的分化，以及他们在相对隔离的状态下生活了很长一段时间，让我感到非常惊讶。"南卡罗来纳大学的生物学家、这项研究的另一位资深作者蒂莫西·穆索说：
The researchers also traced kin relationships, connecting parents and offspring to identify 15 different family groups.
研究人员还追踪了亲属关系，将父母和子女联系起来，从而确定了15个不同的家族群体。
Some dog families were large and sprawling, while others were tiny, with more defined geographic territories.
一些狗的族群很大，分布范围广泛，而另一些狗的族群则很小，领土的地理区域更明确。
Three family groups shared a storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, the scientists found.
科学家们发现，三个家族群体共用一个乏燃料储存设施。
"I don't think anybody has looked at a single, free-breeding dog population genetically at this level of detail before," said Adam Boyko, a canine geneticist at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, who was not involved in the research.
"我认为，以前没有人从基因上如此详细地研究过一个自由繁殖的犬类种群。"康奈尔大学兽医学院的犬类遗传学家亚当·博伊科说，他未参与这项研究。
The study will be a good starting point for further investigation of the effects of radiation, Dr. Boyko added.
博伊科补充说，对于进一步研究辐射的影响，这项研究将是一个很好的起点。
"They find where the interesting populations are," he said, "where the interesting family groups are."
"他们找到了有趣的种群在哪里，"他说，"有趣的族群在哪里。"
The power plant dogs and the Chernobyl City dogs had mixed breed ancestry, but both shared stretches of DNA with German shepherds, as well as other Eastern European shepherd breeds.
核电站的狗和切尔诺贝利市的狗都有混血血统，但两者都与德国牧羊犬和其他东欧牧羊犬品种共享DNA片段。
The dogs from Chernobyl City also had variants that are common in boxers and Rottweilers.
切尔诺贝利市的狗也有一些基因变体，这些变体在拳师犬和罗威纳犬中很常见。
