초록
We investigated the effects of environmental variations on the growth and survival rate of Stichopus japonicus to determine the optimum environmental conditions for its growth. Literature studies and a 12 month-long diver survey were carried out to understand the habitat, ecology and size of the surveyed area. Based on the collected data, we suggested optimum habitat conditions for releasing S. japonicus. Experiments on releasing S. japonicus were conducted in the breakwater of the Hwagye fishing cooperative in Hwagey-ri, Namhae-un, Gyeongsangnam-do, Korea. To implement the experiments, we divided the surveyed area into 4 sub-areas with different characteristics: (1) sand and silt zone; (2) artificial sea cucumber bank zone; (3) artificial rock bank zone; and (4) marine algae zone. The experiment lasted for 12 months. We released 32,000 sea cucumbers over $120m^2$ of each of the sand and silt zone, artificial rock bank zone and marine algae zone and released 6,000 sea cucumbers over $120m^2$ of the artificial sea cucumber bank zone. The average density of the released sea cucumbers from day 30 to day 360 after the releasing was conducted was the highest in the artificial sea cucumber bank zone ($23.7animal/m^2$), which was followed by artificial rock bank zone ($2.0animal/m^2$), marine algae zone ($1.9animal/m^2$) and sand and silt zone ($0.8animal/m^2$). The analysis on growth showed that the initial average weight of 2.3 g increased on day 360 after the releasing to 12.5 g in the artificial sea cucumber rank zone, 20.2 g in the sand and silt zone, 23.3 g in the artificial rock bank zone and 22.9 g in the marine algae zone. Results from the experiment along with the literature analysis suggest the following optimum habitat conditions: $10-15^{\circ}C$ water temperature; 28-34 psu salinity; 5-10 m water depth; 0.2-0.5 m/s velocity; rock, stone and muddy sand as substrate; and less than 20% mud in the substrate.