• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.119-135
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• 2021

Korea has stepped up efforts to investigate and catalog its flora and fauna to conserve the biodiversity of the Korean Peninsula and secure biological resources since the ratification of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 1992 and the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits (ABS) in 2010. Thus, after its establishment in 2007, the National Institute of Biological Resources (NIBR) of the Ministry of Environment of Korea initiated a project called the Korean Indigenous Species Investigation Project to investigate indigenous species on the Korean Peninsula. For 15 years since its beginning in 2006, this project has been carried out in five phases, Phase 1 from 2006-2008, Phase 2 from 2009-2011, Phase 3 from 2012-2014, Phase 4 from 2015-2017, and Phase 5 from 2018-2020. Before this project, in 2006, the number of indigenous species surveyed was 29,916. The figure was cumulatively aggregated at the end of each phase as 33,253 species for Phase 1 (2008), 38,011 species for Phase 2 (2011), 42,756 species for Phase 3 (2014), 49,027 species for Phase 4 (2017), and 54,428 species for Phase 5(2020). The number of indigenous species surveyed grew rapidly, showing an approximately 1.8-fold increase as the project progressed. These statistics showed an annual average of 2,320 newly recorded species during the project period. Among the recorded species, a total of 5,242 new species were reported in scientific publications, a great scientific achievement. During this project period, newly recorded species on the Korean Peninsula were identified using the recent taxonomic classifications as follows: 4,440 insect species (including 988 new species), 4,333 invertebrate species except for insects (including 1,492 new species), 98 vertebrate species (fish) (including nine new species), 309 plant species (including 176 vascular plant species, 133 bryophyte species, and 39 new species), 1,916 algae species (including 178 new species), 1,716 fungi and lichen species(including 309 new species), and 4,812 prokaryotic species (including 2,226 new species). The number of collected biological specimens in each phase was aggregated as follows: 247,226 for Phase 1 (2008), 207,827 for Phase 2 (2011), 287,133 for Phase 3 (2014), 244,920 for Phase 4(2017), and 144,333 for Phase 5(2020). A total of 1,131,439 specimens were obtained with an annual average of 75,429. More specifically, 281,054 insect specimens, 194,667 invertebrate specimens (except for insects), 40,100 fish specimens, 378,251 plant specimens, 140,490 algae specimens, 61,695 fungi specimens, and 35,182 prokaryotic specimens were collected. The cumulative number of researchers, which were nearly all professional taxonomists and graduate students majoring in taxonomy across the country, involved in this project was around 5,000, with an annual average of 395. The number of researchers/assistant researchers or mainly graduate students participating in Phase 1 was 597/268; 522/191 in Phase 2; 939/292 in Phase 3; 575/852 in Phase 4; and 601/1,097 in Phase 5. During this project period, 3,488 papers were published in major scientific journals. Of these, 2,320 papers were published in domestic journals and 1,168 papers were published in Science Citation Index(SCI) journals. During the project period, a total of 83.3 billion won (annual average of 5.5 billion won) or approximately US $75 million (annual average of US $5 million) was invested in investigating indigenous species and collecting specimens. This project was a large-scale research study led by the Korean government. It is considered to be a successful example of Korea's compressed development as it attracted almost all of the taxonomists in Korea and made remarkable achievements with a massive budget in a short time. The results from this project led to the National List of Species of Korea, where all species were organized by taxonomic classification. Information regarding the National List of Species of Korea is available to experts, students, and the general public (https://species.nibr.go.kr/index.do). The information, including descriptions, DNA sequences, habitats, distributions, ecological aspects, images, and multimedia, has been digitized, making contributions to scientific advancement in research fields such as phylogenetics and evolution. The species information also serves as a basis for projects aimed at species distribution and biological monitoring such as climate-sensitive biological indicator species. Moreover, the species information helps bio-industries search for useful biological resources. The most meaningful achievement of this project can be in providing support for nurturing young taxonomists like graduate students. This project has continued for the past 15 years and is still ongoing. Efforts to address issues, including species misidentification and invalid synonyms, still have to be made to enhance taxonomic research. Research needs to be conducted to investigate another 50,000 species out of the estimated 100,000 indigenous species on the Korean Peninsula.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.351-368
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• 2004

Following the previous experiments, a starvation experiment was conducted to determine the influence of feeding and starvation on the histological and biochemical changes, the morphormetric changes in the sectioned body and the morphometric changes in Rhynchocypris oxycephalus (Sauvage and Dabry). The influence of starvation on nutritional conditions of the histological changes of hepatocyte and intestinal epithelium as hepatosmatic index (HSI), protein, RNA and DNA concentrations of liver in R. oxycephalus was tested. Although the starved group showed higher concentrations of protein, DNA and RNA than the fed group, food deprivation resulted in a decrease in the HSI, hepatocyte nucleus size and nuclear height of the intestinal epithelium. The RNA - DNA ratio appears to be a useful index of nutritional status in R. oxycephalus and may be useful for determining if R. oxycephalus is in a period of rapid or slow growth at the time of sampling. Additionally, the data have been interpreted in detail and some biologically important relationships discussed. The effects of starvation on the morphometrical changes in sectioned body traits, condition factor, viscera index and dressing percentage were determined for evaluating nutritional conditions of R. oxycephalus. Starvation for nine weeks resulted in a decrease in most sectioned traits as well as in condition factor and viscera index (P<0.05). These findings suggest that nutritional parameters used in this study appear to be a useful index for nutritional status in this species. The data has been interpreted in detail and some important body sectioned values of interest to commercial growers discussed. A 75-day study was conducted to determine the effect of starvation on classical and truss parameters in R. oxycephalus. Truss dimensions of almost the entire head and trunk region as well as the abdomen were increased significantly through feeding or starvation (P<0.05). Truss dimensions of the caudal region generally decreased through feeding or starvation, particularly those dimensions at the hind part of the trunk. There were some significant decreases in classical dimensions of the head region during feeding, in relation to body depth characteristics in the trunk and caudal region during starvation, whereas there was only one decreasing classical dimension in the caudal region during feeding. The results of this study indicate that application of the truss network as a character set enforces classical coverage across the body form, discrimination among experimental groups thus being enhanced. Considering that the dimension of the lower part of the head and some truss and classical dimensions were least affected by feeding and starvation, these dimensions may then be useful as a taxonomical indicator to discriminate the species of Rhynchocypris sp. The value of trunk region dimensions with a large component of body depth in R. oxycephalus is most likely to be compromised by variability related to differences in feeding regimes of fish in different habitats.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Fisheries and Ocean Technology
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.241-258
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• 1998

The experimental demersal trawl surveys to provide the essential information for the assessment, management and utilization of commercially important fish stocks in the southern waters of Korea were carried out during five research cruises between October 1996 and October 1997 by the training ship “KAYA” of Pukyong National University. The biological sampling was conducted by using the trawl net with a cover net of 36 mm in mesh size at 64 planned trawl stations during daylight to identify the biological characteristics of fish. Each catch was standardized into catch per unit of time and the catches at each trawl station were sorted, weighed and counted by species. The changes in catches of each fish species and the shifts in dominant species by seasions and sampling regions in the research area were analyzed, and the abundance of fish was estimated from the relationship between the trawl catches and the volume of the water column sampled by demersal trawls. The results obtained can be summarized as follows : 1. During the 64 demersal trawls conducted in the southern waters of Korea, 129 species including 112 species of fishes, 8 species of Cephalopoda and 7 species of Crustacea, were identified Also, during the 1996 and 1997 trawl surveys in the reseach area, a large number of commercially important species with small differences in proportion was found. me proportion of Japanese horse mackerel which comprised 19.8% of the total catch by weight was highest, followed by chub mackerel(15.0%), swordtip squid(9.0%), redwing searobin(6.2%), konoshiro gizzard shad(6.1%), Japanese flying squid(5.8%), silver pomfet(5.1%), blackmouth goosefish(5.1%), etc. Swordtip squid, Japanese flying squid, blackmouth goosefish and blackthroat seaperch were among the dominant species in all seasons with a relatively high and stab1e proportion(3.6~9.0%), and were widely distributed in the entire southern water of Korea. 2. The catch rates by cover net varied at 0.7~91.9% by weight of the total trawl catch by codend and cover net at 64 planned trawl stations and the mean catch rate was 44.4%. Species comprising a major portion of the catches by cover net mainly were swordtip squid, konoshiro gizzard shad, the juveniles of Japanese horse mackerel, blackthroat seaperch and chub mackerel, etc. 3. The distribution density of fish in terms of biomass per unit volume which derived from the catch data by 63 bottom trawl hauls in the southern waters of Korea ranged from 17.9 $\times$ 10-6 to 1,440.9 $\times$ 10-6kg/m3 with the mean value of 153.8 $\times$ 10-6 kg/m3. These fish densities varied between seasons, location of sampling stations and sea conditions. From these results, it is worth noting that the catch composition of multispecies and the increased occurrence of small fish in the southern waters of Korea may also result in new problems in determining the total allowable catch(TAC) levels for economically important species.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.38 no.1 s.110
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• pp.83-94
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• 2005

The objective of the study was to elucidate early life history of Rhinogobius brunneus, based on laboratory observations and field works, along with its courtship and spawning behaviors. The male and female fish matured were sampled for the lab experiments from Gap-Stream, which is one of the tributaries of Geum-River, Korea. The spawning behaviors and courtship of matured adults had a typical pattern; matured males of Rhinogobius brunneus built up spawning nests and had their own territory before the spawning, and the behavior then triggered the egg spawning of female with active courtship. The females attached elliptic egg mass as a single layer, on the stones below the spawning nest. After the spawning, the egg mass was guarded by males only until the hatching. The size of egg fertilized, measured by microscope was about 1.5${\pm}$0.1mm in length and 0.7${\pm}$0.1 mm in the egg's width. According to the lab experiments conducted under four temperature regime, the lapsed time for the hatching was shortened as temperatures increased in the treatments. On the contrary to the hatching time, the average length of newly hatched larvae showed a reverse relation with water temperature. The larvae, considered a final stage of the early life history was about 3.6 mm in total length for water temperature of $18^{\circ}C$, whereas they were between 3.1 mm and 3.2 mm for over $25^{\circ}C$. This indicates that higher water temperature may decrease the growth rate in the early life history. These results may provide valuable information for the population conservation and ecosystem protection under accelerated water pollution and habitat degradations in Korea.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.40 no.11
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• pp.887-898
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• 2007

A physically based semi-distributed model, SWAT was applied to the Chungju Dam upstream watershed in order to investigate the spatial and temporal characteristics of watershed sediment yields. For this, general features of the SWAT and sediment simulation algorithm within the model were described briefly, and watershed sediment modeling system was constructed after calibration and validation of parameters related to the runoff and sediment. With this modeling system, temporal and spatial variation of soil loss and sediment yields according to watershed scales, land uses, and reaches was analyzed. Sediment yield rates with drainage areas resulted in $0.5{\sim}0.6ton/ha/yr$ excluding some upstream sub-watersheds and showed around 0.51 ton/ha/yr above the areas of $1,000km^2$. Annual average soil loss according to land use represented the higher values in upland areas, but relatively lower in paddy and forest areas which were similar to the previous results from other researchers. Among the upstream reaches, Pyeongchanggang and Jucheongang showed higher sediment yields which was thought to be caused by larger area and higher fraction of upland than other upstream sub-areas. Monthly sediment yields at the main outlet showed same trend with seasonal rainfall distribution, that is, approximately 62% of annual yield was generated during July to August and the amount was about 208 ton/yr. From the results, we could obtain the uniform value of sediment yield rate and could roughly evaluate the effect of soil loss with land uses, and also could analyze the temporal and spatial characteristics of sediment yields from each reach and monthly variation for the Chungju Dam upstream watershed.