• Korean Journal of Plant Taxonomy
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.46-55
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to review the taxonomic position of Taxus cuspidata var. latifolia endemic to Ulleung Island with related taxa T. cuspidata var. cuspidata, T. caespitosa, and T. cuspidata var. nana based on external morphological characters and DNA barcoding study. T. cuspidata var. latifolia was similar to T. cuspidata var. cuspidata in the arbor, straight trunk, and symmetric arrangement of leaf. But the unique differences between T. cuspidata var. latifolia and T. cuspidata var. cuspidata were leaf size and the exposure of seed from aril. Additionally, sequences of four chloroplast DNA regions including matK, rbcL, trnL intron and trnL-trnF spacer regions were analyzed. Korean Taxus species and their related taxon T. cuspidata var. nana were strongly supported as a monophyletic group in neighbor-joining analysis. Taxus cuspidata var. latifolia showed 100% sequence identity to related taxa. Korean endemic T. caespitosa is also distinguishable from related taxa by prostrate stems and spiral arrangement of leaf. The examinations of external morphology and DNA barcoding study suggest that the taxonomic position of T. cuspidata var. latifolia should be maintained as a variety of T. cuspidata.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.94-111
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• 2023

In order to establish an effective management strategy for invasive species early detection and regular monitoring are required to assess their introduction or dispersal. Environmental DNA (eDNA) is actively applied to evaluate the fauna including the presence of invasive species as it has high detection sensitivity and can detect multiple species simultaneously. In Korea, the applicability evaluation of metabarcoding is being conducted mainly on fish, and research on other taxa is insufficient. Therefore, this study identified the feasibility of detecting invasive species in Korea using eDNA metabarcoding. In addition, to confirm the possibility of detection by taxa, the detection of target species was evaluated using four universal primers (MiFish, MiMammal, Mibird, Amp16S) designed for fish, mammals, birds, and amphibians. As a result, target species (Trachemys scripta, 3 sites; Cervus nippon, 3 sites; Micropterus salmoides, 7 sites; Rana catesbeiana, 4 sites) were detected in 17 of the total 55 sites. Even in the selection of dense sampling sites within the study area, there was a difference in the detection result by reflecting the ecological characteristics of the target species. A comparison of community structures (species richness, abundance and diversity) based on the presence of invasive species focused on M.salmoides and T.scripta, showed higher diversity at the point where invasive species were detected. Also, 1 to 4 more species were detected and abundance was also up to 1.7 times higher. The results of invasive species detection through metabarcoding and the comparison of community structures indicate that the accumulation of large amounts of monitoring data through eDNA can be efficiently utilized for multidimensional ecosystem evaluation. In addition, it suggested that eDNA can be used as major data for evaluation and prediction, such as tracking biological changes caused by artificial and natural factors and environmental impact assessment.

• Korean Journal of Ichthyology
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.119-126
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• 2022

Here, we present the first morphological description of a larval Naso hexacanthus (5.2 mm in body length) from the East China Sea identified by cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) barcoding. The larva had a kite-shaped body with long serrated first spine of dorsal and anal fins. There were four melanophores on the base of the anal fin, dense melanophores on the caudal peduncle, and scattered melanophores on the surface of the brain. There was one small spine on the snout and behind each eye, with serrations on the head, top of the eye, inner- and outer-preopercle, and on the lower part and side of the opercle. The morphological characteristics of larval N. hexacanthus identified by COI barcoding will be useful for species identification of larval fish.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.156-169
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• 2021

Traditional morphological identification difficulties, such as phenotypic plasticity, misidentification of cryptic species, and larval stage species, can be compensated for by using DNA analysis techniques, such as DNA barcoding, in surveying zooplankton populations, including species identification. Recently, the rapid development of DNA sequencing techniques has allowed DNA-based community analysis not only for zooplankton assemblages in various aquatic ecosystems but also for the gut contents of zooplankton that are limited by conventional methods such as visual and microscopic identification. Therefore, the application of DNA sequencing can help understand biological interactions through the analysis of zooplankton food sources. The present paper introduces the major DNA-based approaches in zooplankton research topics, including taxonomic approaches by DNA barcoding, community-level approaches by metabarcoding, and gut content analyses, summarizes the analysis methods, and finally suggests the methodological topics that need to be considered for future applications.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.199-208
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• 2021

Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is effective method with high detection sensitivity for evaluating fish biodiversity and detecting endangered fish from natural water samples. We compared the richness of operational taxonomic units(OTUs) and composition of freshwater fishes according to filters(cellulose nitrate filter vs. glass fiber filter), extraction kits(DNeasy2^® Blood & Tissue Kit vs. DNeasy2^® PowerWater Kit), primer sets (12S rDNA vs. 16S rDNA), and PCR methods (conventional PCR vs. touchdown PCR) to determine the optimal conditions for metabarcoding analysis of Korean freshwater fish. The glass fiber filter and DNeasy2^® Blood & Tissue Kit combination showed the highest number of freshwater fish OTUs in both 12S and 16S rDNA. Among the four types, the primer sets only showed statistically significant difference in the average number of OTUs in class Actinopterygii (non-parametric Wilcoxon signed ranks test, p=0.005). However, there was no difference in the average number of OTUs in freshwater fish. The species composition also showed significant difference according to primer sets (PERMANOVA, Pseudo-F=6.9489, p=0.006), but no differences were observed in the other three types. The non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) results revealed that species composition clustered together according to primer sets based on similarity of 65%; 16S rDNA primer set was mainly attributed to endangered species such as Microphysogobio koreensis and Pseudogobio brevicorpus. In contrast, the 12S rDNA primer set was mainly attributed to common species such as Zacco platypus and Coreoperca herzi. This study provides essential information on species diversity analysis using metabarcoding for environmental water samples obtained from rivers in Korea.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.9-16
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• 2018

The advent of available DNA barcoding technology has been extensively adopted to assist in the reference to differentiate the origin of various medicinal plants species. However, this technology is still far behind the curve of technological advances to be applied in a practical manner in the market to authenticate the counterfeit components or detect the contamination in the admixtures of medicinal plant species. Recently, a high resolution melting curve analysis technique was combined with the procedure of DNA barcoding (Bar-HRM) to accomplish this purpose. In this review, we tried to summarize the current development and bottleneck of processing related to the Bar-HRM technology for the practical application of medicinal plant species' differentiation in a viable global market. Although several successful results have been reported, there are still many obstacles to be resolved, such as limited number of DNA barcodes and single nucleotide polymorphisms, in particular, only one DNA barcode, internal transcribed sequence (ITS) of ribosomal DNA has been reported in the available nuclear genome. In addition, too few cases have been reported about the identification of counterfeit or contamination with processed medicinal plant products, in particular specifically the case of technology based infusion, jam and jelly products and components in which it is noted that DNA can be thereby degraded during the processing of these products and components.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.368-375
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• 2022

Gut contents analysis is essential to predict the impact of organisms on food source changes due to variations of the habitat environment. Previous studies of gut content analysis have been conducted using traditional methods, such as visual observation. However, these studies are limited in analyzing food sources because of the digestive process in gut organ. DNA metabarcoding analysis is a useful method to analyze food sources by supplementing these limitations. We sampled marine fish of Pennahia argentata, Larimichthys polyactis, Crangon affinis, Loligo beka and Sepia officinalis from Gwangyang Bay and Yeosu fisheries market for analyzing gut contents by applying DNA metabarcoding analysis. 18S rRNA v9 primer was used for analyzing food source by DNA metabarcoding. Network and two-way clustering analyses characterized the relationship between organisms and food sources. As a result of comparing metabarcoding of gut contents for P. argentata between sampled from Gwangyang Bay and the fisheries market, fish and Copepoda were analyzed as common food sources. In addition, Decapoda and Copepoda were analyzed as common food sources for L. polyactis and C. affinis, respectively. Copepoda was analyzed as the primary food source for L. beka and S. officinalis. These study results demonstrated that gut contents analysis using DNA metabarcoding reflects diverse and detailed information of biological food sources in the aquatic environment. In addition, it will be possible to provide biological information in the gut to identify key food sources by applying it to the research on the food web in the ecosystem.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.637-656
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• 2023

River estuaries are dynamic and productive ecosystems with high regional biodiversity. Environmental DNA (eDNA) has become a useful approach to assessing biodiversity in aquatic ecosystems. This study was conducted to investigate fish community characteristics and species diversity in two river estuary ecosystems, the Taehwa River and Changwon Stream. We further compared conventional and eDNA metabarcoding analyses of the fish communities. The conventional survey was performed in May, July, and October 2022, while the eDNA analysis was conducted only in May. We observed various fish species with different life histories, including carp, goby, and marine fish. We also found that migratory fish, such as dace Tribolodon hakonensis, sweetfish Plecoglossus altivelis, and eel Auguilla japonica, occurred in the Taehwa River, suggesting high river connectivity. Marine fish species were predominant in the Changwon Stream, as this river is located close to the sea. The diversity indices showed that the Taehwa River generally had higher species richness, evenness, and diversity values than the Changwon Stream. A total of 9-19 species were detected in the conventional survey for the three sites, whereas 11-18 species were found from eDNA analysis. The findings indicate that the sensitivity of eDNA was similar to or higher than that of the conventional method. Our study findings suggest the efficiency and efficacy of eDNA-based fish community monitoring, although with some shortcomings in applying the genetic marker to Korean fish, including no clear-cut distinction for Korean endemic species and/or genetically closely related species groups.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.125-138
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• 2019

This study aims to highlight the possibility in identifying species composition of fish communities using the environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding technique, from both of the technical introduction and the pilot test at urban ecological streams. This new emerging survey technique using eDNA is getting popular in the world as a compensating way for the conventional field survey. However, the application to the domestic cases has yet to be studied. We attempted to use this technique for identifying fish species observed at four survey points in Hwangguji-chon, Suwon City. As a result, the detected number of species by eDNA sampled once in May was significantly matched with the total number of observed species in annual field surveys. Additionally eDNA results indicated the presence possibility of the unobserved species in field last year, even though the validation may be required. This survey technique seems to be more efficient and applicable to diverse situations of the fields and species, thereby needs to be studied further. We discussed the pros and cons of the application and summarized the research directions in future.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.133-144
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• 2021

This study aims to estimate location of land mammals habitat by analyzing spatial data and investigate how to apply environmental DNA monitoring methodology to lotic system in Yangpyeong-gun, Gyeonggi-do. Environmental DNA sampling points are selected through spatial analysis with QGIS open source program by overlaying Kernel density of wild boar(Sus scrofa), elevation, slope and land-cover map, and 81 samples are collected. After 240 mL of water was filtered in each sample, metabarcoding technique using MiMammal universal primer was applied in order to get a whole list of mammal species whose DNA particles contained in filtered water. 8 and 22 samples showed DNA of wild boar and water deer, respectively. DNA of raccoon dog, Eurasian otter, and Siberian weasel are also detected through metabarcoding analysis. This study is valuable that conducted in outdoor lotic system. The study suggests a new wildlife monitoring methodology integrating overlayed geographic data and environmental DNA.