• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.179-187
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• 2010

The Theory of Island Biogeography describes that the number of species on an island affected by island area and distance from the mainland. This study was performed to compare and analyze the community structure of the macro-invertebrates in three isolated islands, around Korean waters in terms of the Theory of Island Biogeography. Macrobenthic animals were collected using a modified underwater quadrat in August 2009. A total of 104 macrobenthic species were sampled with a mean density of 399 individuals $m^{-2}$ and biomass of 1,506.70 g $m^{-2}$. Based on the abundance and biomass data, there were 10 dominant species accounting for approximately 67.17% of total individuals. The highest densities were found in the amphipoda Amphipoda spp., the bivalvia Modiolus agripetus and Mytilus coruscus, the Sipunculida Phascolosoma scolops and the polychaeta Syllidae unid.. On the contrary, the top ten species made up 95.66% of the total biomass while the three most abundant, the bivalves M. coruscus, Streostria circumpicta and M. agripetus. The conventional multi-variate statistics (cluster analysis and non-metric multi-dimensional scaling) applied to assess spatial variation in macrobenthic assemblages. Cluster analysis and nMDS ordination analysis based on the Bray-Curtis similarity identified 2 station groups. The group 1 was consisted with Gageodo (except for lower station at Transect 2) and Dokdo station and was numerically dominated by the polychaetes Eunice antennata and Syllidae unid., the cirripedia Megabalanus rosa and the bivalvia M. coruscus. However, group 2 was associated with Sohwado station and was characterized by high abundance of the anomura Petrolisthes japonicus, the gastropoda Lirularia pygmaea and the brachiopoda Coptothyris grayi. In conclusion, these results suggested that the species diversity and community structure of macrobenthos in three isolated island seemed slightly related to island area and distance from the mainland.

• The Korean Journal of Ecology
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.341-348
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• 2002

Correlations among the island area, distance to mainland, latitude, longitude, human impacts, diversity and composition of vascular plants were investigated by analyzing data on 261 islands(10.3% of total number of islands in Korea) selected from the annual reports for 'the natural evironment survey of the uninhabited islands in Korea' published by 'Ministry of Environment' during three years from 1999. The area of surveyed 261 islands ranged 1,100 to 961,000㎡(average of 75,000㎡), and the distance to mainland ranged 0.15 to 51.5km (average of 14.9km). Total number of plant species recorded in those islands was 1,109 species throughout 30 families, and mean mumber of plant species of each island was 98.7 species. Native species were 1,003 species (90.4%), and exotic species were 106 species(9.6%). The families with the largest number of species was the Compositae with 114 species, and followed in the order of Gramineae(90), Leguminosae(54), and Rosaceae(53). The result of multi-dimensional scaling analysis based on the plant species composition showed that 261 islands were distinctly divided into two groups, western sea group(131 islands) and southern sea group(130 islands). The islands of western sea group(average area of 93,000㎡) had greatly larger area than them of southern sea group(average area of 57,000㎡), but the average number of species (average species of 192) per island were less than in southern sea group (average species of 233). And, the partitioning into two groups was responsible for the species restricted to southern than to western sea group. Therefore, this results suggest that the distribution pattern and the composition of plant species could be also affected by the latitude of the island. When the species-area model was applied to total island and plant species, these results indicate that the island area was the most significant predictor of plant species diversity, and the distance to mainland and the human impacts were also shown to be significant predictors of plant species richness. But when applied to both groups of islands by the stepwise selection method, the result showed that islands of southern sea group were greatly affected by the factors such as human impacts, distance to mainland and longitude than western sea group. For the purpose of conservation of natural ecosystem on the uninhabited islands in Korea, we will also examine how the human impacts and the invasion of exotic plant species will disturb the native species diversity.