• Journal of Korean Society for Geospatial Information Science
• /
• v.23 no.1
• /
• pp.101-111
• /
• 2015

Stream restoration projects have become threats to riparian ecosystem in Rep. of korea. Riparian wildlife becomes isolated and the animals are often experience difficulties in crossing riparian corridors. The purposes of this study is to select suitable wildlife passages for wild animals crossing riparian corridors. Maximum entropy model and snow tracking data on embankment in winter seasons were used to develop species distribution models to select suitable wildlife passages for water deer. The analysis suggests the following. Firstly, most significant factors for water deer's habitat in area nearby riparian area are shown to distance to water, age-class, land cover, slope, aspect, digital elevation model, tree density, and distance to road. For the riparian area, significant factors are shown to be land cover, size of riparian area, distance to tributary, and distance to built-up. Secondly, the suitable wildlife passages are recommended to reflect areas of high suitability with Maximum Entropy model in riparian areas and the surrounding areas and moving passages. The selected suitable areas are shown to be areas with low connectivity due to roads and vertical levee although typical habitats for water deer are forest, grassland, and farmland. In addition, the analysis of traces on snow suggests that the water deer make a detour around the artificial structures. In addition, the water deer are shown to make a detour around the fences of roads and embankment around farmland. Lastly, the water deer prefer habitats around riparian areas following tributaries. The method used in this study is expected to provide cost-efficient and functional analysis in selecting suitable areas.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
• /
• v.39 no.4 s.118
• /
• pp.462-470
• /
• 2006

The zooplankton community dynamics and grazing experiments was evaluated along a 40 km section of the lower Seomjin river system. Zooplankton was sampled twice a month from January 2005 to June 2006 at three sites (River mouth; RKO, Seomjin bridge: RK12 and Gurae bridge: RK36) in the main river channel. During the study period, the values of most limnological parameters in the three sites were fairly similar, except for conductivity. Annual variation of conductivity in River mouth and Seomjin bridge was more dramatic than which of the other site. There were statistically significant spatial and seasonal differences in zooplankton abundance (ANOVA, P<0.01). Total abundance of major zooplankton groups at both stations was much higher than in Gurae bridge. Among the macrozooplankton, cladocerans abundance was negligible in study sites during study periods. Community filtering rates (CFRs) for phytoplankton and bacteria varied from 0 to 50 mL $L^{-1}\;D^{-1}$ and from 0 to 45 mL $L^{-1}\;D^{-1}$, respectively. The spatial variation of CFRs for phytoplankton was significant (ANOVA, P<0.05). The CFRs of copepods for phytoplankton and bacteria was much higher than that of cladocerans at study sites. Total zooplankton filtering rates on bacteria were slightly lower than filtering rates on phytoplankton. The CFRs of microzooplankton (MICZ) for bacteria were much higher than for macrozooplankton (MACZ) at all sites. Considering the total zooplankton community, MICZ generally were more important than MACZ as grazers of bacteria and phytoplankton in freshwater zone, while MACZ were more important than MICZ as grazers of phytoplankton in brackish zone.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
• /
• v.40 no.1
• /
• pp.92-99
• /
• 2012

Many wildlife habitats have been destroyed and fragmented during the rapid industrialization and urbanization process in Korea. It is essential to connect these fragmented habitats to reduce road-kill of many types of endangered urban wildlife. The site selection for wildlife passages must take into account the behavior of the wildlife species for safe crossing utilizing many artificial barriers in urban areas. This study attempted to identify potential wildlife passage sites for the endangered and protected leopard cats of Gangseo Ecological Park in Seoul, Korea. A space syntax analysis, an analytical technique to objectively evaluate the spatial configurations related to passage selection, found that the integration value represents the accessibility and connectivity of spaces. In this paper, this means that the bigger the integration value, the more frequently the leopard cat passes through. The leopard cats were captured and radio-tracked for 72 hours once a month from March to June of 2009. The ArcGIS and Animal Movement of Hawth Tools were used to analyze the home range and movement paths, and Axwoman 4.0 was used to analyze space syntax. The daily average movement distance was $2.099{\pm}1.08km$. During the survey period, the leopard cats crossed over an urban expressway more than 20 times, running the risk of road-kill. The range of global integration values was 0.458~1.834, while that of the local integration was 0.210~6.061. Five sites that met across the leopard cats' movement routes and roads were selected to measure the local and global integrate values. Among these sites, the higher the integration value, the higher the road-kill possibility. Thus, two of five sites with high global and local integration values were suggested as potential wildlife passage sites for the leopard cats. Now, three tunnel passages are under construction at the suggested sites for which local integration value was highest (LI=4.369). Further studies are scheduled to verify these potential sites as suitable wildlife passages.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
• /
• v.35 no.5
• /
• pp.480-489
• /
• 2021

Climate change poses great threats to wildlife populations by decreasing their number and destroying their habitats, jeopardizing biodiversity conservation. Asiatic salamander (Hynobiidae) species are particularly vulnerable to climate change due to their small home range and limited dispersal ability. Thus, this study used one salamander species, the Korean clawed salamander (Onychodactylus koreanus), as a model species and examined their habitat characteristics and current distribution in South Korea to predict its spatial distribution under climate change. As a result, we found that altitude was the most important environmental factor for their spatial distribution and that they showed a dense distribution in high-altitude forest regions such as Gangwon and Gyeongsanbuk provinces. The spatial distribution range and habitat characteristics predicted in the species distribution models were sufficiently in accordance with previous studies on the species. By modeling their distribution changes under two different climate change scenarios, we predicted that the distribution range of the Korean clawed salamander population would decrease by 62.96% under the RCP4.5 scenario and by 98.52% under the RCP8.5 scenario, indicating a sharp reduction due to climate change. The model's AUC value was the highest in the present (0.837), followed by RCP4.5 (0.832) and RCP8.5 (0.807). Our study provides a basic reference for implementing conservation plans for amphibians under climate change. Additional research using various analysis techniques reflecting habitat characteristics and minute habitat factors for the whole life cycle of Korean-tailed salamanders help identify major environmental factors that affect species reduction.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
• /
• v.31 no.2
• /
• pp.152-165
• /
• 2017

The greater long-tail hamster, Tscherskia triton, is widely distributed in Northern China, Korea and adjacent areas of Russia. Except for its distribution, biological characteristics related to life history, behavior, and ecological influences for this species are rarely studied in Korea. This study was conducted to obtain biological information on breeding, growth and development that are basic to species-specific studies. The study adopted laboratory management of a breeding programme for T. triton collected in Jeju Island from March, 2015 to December, 2016. According to the study results, the conception rate was 31.67% and the mice in the large cages had a higher rate of conception than those in the small cages (56.7 vs. 6.7%). The gestation period was $22{\pm}1.6days$ (ranges from 21 to27 days), and litter size ranged from 2 to 7, with a mean of $4.26{\pm}1.37$ in the species. The minimum age for weaning was between $19.2{\pm}1.4days$ (range of 18-21 days). There were no significant differences by sex between mean body weight and external body measurements at birth. However, a significant sexual difference was found from the period of weaning (21 days old) in head and body length, as well as tail length (HBL-weaning, $106.50{\pm}6.02$ vs. $113.34{\pm}4.72mm$, p<0.05; HBL-4 months, $163.93{\pm}5.42$ vs. $182.83{\pm}4.32mm$, p<0.05; TL-4 months, $107.23{\pm}3.25$ vs. $93.95{\pm}2.15mm$, p<0.05). Gompertz and Logistic growth curves were fitted to data for body weight and lengths of head and body, tail, ear, and hind foot. In two types of growth curves, males exhibited greater asymptotic values ($164.840{\pm}7.453$ vs. $182.830{\pm}4.319mm$, p<0.0001; $163.936{\pm}5.415$ vs. $182.840{\pm}4.333mm$, p<0.0001), faster maximum growth rates ($1.351{\pm}0.065$ vs. $1.435{\pm}0.085$, p<0.05; $2.870{\pm}0.253$ vs. $3.211{\pm}0.635$, p<0.05), and a later age of maximum growth than females in head and body length ($5.121{\pm}0.318$ vs. $5.520{\pm}0.333$, p<0.05; $6.884{\pm}0.336$ vs. $7.503{\pm}0.453$, p<0.05). However, females exhibited greater asymptotic values ($105.695{\pm}5.938$ vs. $94.150{\pm}2.507mm$, p<0.001; $111.609{\pm}14.881$ vs. $93.960{\pm}2.150mm$, p<0.05) and longer length of inflection ($60.306{\pm}1.992$ vs. $67.859{\pm}1.330mm$, p<0.0001; $55.714{\pm}7.458$ vs. $46.975{\pm}1.074mm$, p<0.05) than males in tail length. These growth rate constants, viz. the morphological characters and weights of the males and females, were similar to each other in two types of growth curves. These results will be used as necessary data to study species specificity of T. triton with biological foundations.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
• /
• v.45 no.4
• /
• pp.482-489
• /
• 2012

Visual monitoring is hard to apply on fish because they are living in a water system. To overcome this problem, acoustic telemetry, which is effective for underwater monitoring, is often used for studying fish behaviors, such as movement distance, route and patterns. In this study, in order to monitor the movement pattern of Squaliobarbus curriculus (family Cyprinidae), we used acoustic telemetry and identified the home range and movement distances. A total of nine individuals were released at two different locations: one is at the estuary barrage (Sc1~3) and the other is at the lower part of Baekjae Weir (Sc4~9), located in Geum River. Approximately, a 70 km section from the estuary barrage was investigated. Fish, which were released at the estuary barrage, utilized up to 12.7 km upstream as home range from the release site. At the lower part of Baekjae Weir, most of the fish moved and stayed within a 7.2 km downstream area, except for Sc6, which moved 53.4 km (linear maximum distance from release site) downstream from the release site. Relatively small sized fish (Sc7~9) did not show any movement. Accumulated movement distance significantly correlated with the standard length of S. curriculus ($r_s$=0.715, p=0.03). Moreover, the standard length of moving fish was significantly larger than that of not moving fish (Mann-Whitney U test, p=0.024). Therefore, the movement distance of S. curriculus has been correlated with fish size; movement distance was increased with the standard fish length. Although the sample size of monitored fish was small, various meaningful data were collected by acoustic telemetry. Consequently, this technique could be a method available for effectively monitoring the behavior and ecology of native Korean and endemic species.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
• /
• v.16 no.3
• /
• pp.241-248
• /
• 2010

Hypoxic(oxygen-deficient) water masses are a key threat to the ecosystem of shallow marine coastal areas worldwide. The phenomena of hypoxia occurred at Gamak Bay, on the southeast coast of Korea, in late June 2007. In this paper, the physicochemical characteristics of seawater were surveyed for a period of hypoxic water mass disappearance. The hypoxic water mass was located between Sunso and the northwestern area of the inner bay. The dissolved oxygen(DO) concentrations of surface and bottom water were $1.3mgL^{-1}$ and less than $2mgL^{-1}$, respectively, in the hypoxic water masses, and $4.5{\sim}6.8mgL^{-1}$ and $3.8{\sim}6.0mgL^{-1}$ at the other oxygen-rich sample sites, respectively. Chlorophyll a concentrations were $4.9{\sim}25.3{\mu}gL^{-1}$ at the surface, $2.3{\sim}23.1{\mu}gL^{-1}$ in the middle, and $1.9{\sim}9.0{\mu}gL^{-1}$ at the bottom of the hypoxic water masses. When the hypoxic water mass appeared in Gamak Bay, it formed three different vertical types. The first type occurred throughout the water depth around Sunso. The second type developed from the bottom. The third type of hypoxic water mass was formed in the middle water layer when the inversion of water temperature occurred. The third type of phenomena appeared at only St. 9, St. 14 and St. 21 sites near the Hodo coast. Aquatic surface respiration of bottom-dwelling fishes such as the oriental goby(Acanthogobius flavimanus) was observed and many crustaceans were seen along the adjacent shore of the hypoxic water mass area. About 3,000 oriental gobies as well as many crustaceans died due to this event in Gamak Bay. The results of this study could provide fundamental data for the mechanism of hypoxic water masses in Gamak Bay.

• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.138-148
• /
• 2001

The focus of the research was on identifying the risk factors that may result in unprepared intercourse among the adolescent from an ecological systems prospective. A survey questionnaire was conducted from September through December 1999 to 2326 youths, ages from 13-18 years old. After eliminating thirty respondents from Unwed Mother's Home we found that 8.8% of the remaining respondents had experienced sexual intercourse. Of those, 5% of the female and 13.4% of male adolescents has had sexual intercourse, showing 2.7 times more for the male sample population. Broken down to age groups, 3.2% of the thirteen years old group and 19.2% of the eighteen years old group had experienced intercourse, an almost six fold increase in the older age group. To find out the differences between those who had and not had experienced intercourse the group was then divided into two comparative groups by same sex and age variables. Findings from comparative analysis identified five ecological system risk factors among the youth sample that had intercourse；First, individual factor：adolescents who thought less of themselves or didn't consider their potentials, those more exposed other risk behaviors such as drinking, smoking, drugs, runaway and come in contact with pornography, those who thought they knew more about sex and etc. Second, family factor：those who thought family was less important, had less supportive family, higher or lower income family and etc. Third, peer factor：Both groups thought friends were important and had their support. The group with intercourse experience seems to be think that more peers are experiencing other risk behavior. Fourth, school factor：Those in the group who had experienced intercourse seems to think school is less important and with lower academic achievements. Fifth, community factor：There were no statistical significant differences found between the two groups. The overall results from this study implies that if we want to prevent our youths from having unprepared intercourse during adolescence the significance of having meaningful emerging self, family relationship and school experience is important. This study identified the risk factors leading to adolescent sexual intercourse but further research is necessary in finding out about their predictability.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
• /
• v.33 no.6
• /
• pp.624-635
• /
• 2019

Bird strike accidents, a collision between aircraft and birds, have been increasing annually due to an increasing number of aircraft operating each year to meet heavier demand for air traffic. As such, many airports have conducted studies to assess and manage bird strike risks effectively by identifying and ranking bird species that can damage aircraft based on the bird strike records. This study was intended to investigate the bird species that were likely to threaten aircraft and compare and discuss the risk of each species estimated by the single-matrix and multi-matrix risk assessment models based on the Integrated Flight Information Service (IFIS) data collected in Gimpo, Gimhae and Jeju Airports in South Korea from 2005 to 2013. We found that there was a difference in the assessment results between the two models. The single-matrix model estimated 2 species and 6 taxa in Gimpo and Gimhae Airports and 2 species and 5 taxa in Jeju Airport to have the risk score above "high," whereas the multi-matrix model estimated 3 species and 5 taxa in Gimpo Airport, 4 species and 5 taxa in Gimhae Airport, and 2 species and 3 taxa in Jeju Airport to have the risk score above "very high." Although both models estimated the similar high-risk species in Gimpo and Gimhae Airports, there was a significant difference in Jeju Airport. Gimpo and Gimhae Airports are near the estuary of a river, which is an excellent habitat for large and heavy waterbirds. On the other hand, Jeju Airport is near the coast and the city center, and small and light bird species are mostly observed. Since collisions with such species have little effect on aircraft fuselage, the impact of common variables between the two models was small, and the additional variables caused a significant difference between the estimation by the two models.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
• /
• v.30 no.4
• /
• pp.684-693
• /
• 2016

Daemyung retarding basin located near the confluence floodplain of the Nakdong and Kumho River is a large spawning site for the endangered Kaloula borealis, and needs for protecting the habitat of the endangered species are increasing. However, scientific studies are rarely conducted on the population characteristics and ecological knowledge on the species in the basin. This paper aims to estimate the population size and spatial distribution of the species that inhabited at the Daemyung retarding basin, using the capture-recapture method. Also, pitfall traps were installed in each habitat types classified with micro-topographic features, slope aspects, and vegetation communities to identify the spatial distribution characteristics of the Kaloula borealis of each habitat in the retarding basin. Field survey on the species was conducted from May 2013 to October 2014, showing that the species emerged in May, became more active during July and August and started to hibernate at the end of October. Using capture-recapture method, the first survey was carried out from July to August, 2014. Ninety-eight toads were captured, marked, and released back into the site. In the second survey, 68 toads including 5 marked toads of the previous survey were captured. Based on these two-sample surveys, around 535-2,131 individual toads are estimated to inhabit the Daemyung retarding basin. Fifty-seven pitfall traps were installed in four habitat types: mounded and vegetated flatland, lowland swamps, and slope areas of both the southern and western parts of the basin in order to delineate spatial abundance of the endangered Kaloula borealis during the rainy season when the species is actively spawning. Pitfall traps at the spatially explicit array indicated that the species gradually move to the slope areas near the Daemyung stream, showing high occurrence density of the Kaloula borealis compared to the lowland swamps after the spawning season. The emergence of Kaloula borealis in the lowland swamps appeared to be comparatively higher during the spawning season. However, after the spawning season the toads species rapidly moved into the neighboring land of relatively high elevation such as the slope area towards the Dalsung protected wetlands and Daemyung River. These results are closely related to the migration patterns that toads tend to return to the sheltering sites and/or hibernating grounds after the spawning season. Also, the Kaloula borealis moved to the nearest high-level vegetated areas as the lowland swamps of their spawning grounds deteriorated with the expansion of permanent ponds due to the rise in the groundwater level.