• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.177-186
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• 2023

Background: Inner Mongolia, desertification is happening due to climate change and land use alterations. In order to evaluate desert restoration effectiveness, this study compares number of species and species diversity in restored (with planted trees), unrestored area, and the reference ecosystem (Ref-E, typical steppe and woody steppe). Results: The Ref-E had the most plant species (64 taxa), while the unrestored area had the fewest (5 taxa). Among restored areas (restored in 2012, 2008, 2005), older restoration sites had more species (18-42). Similarly, species richness (3.93-0.41) and diversity (1.99-0.40) were highest in the Ref-E and lowest in unrestored areas, with older restored sites having higher values. Conclusions: More plant species and diversity in older restoration areas suggest progress toward ecosystem stabilization, approaching the Ref-E. Therefore, tree planting in Inner Mongolia's Hulunbuir semi-arid desert is a successful restoration effort.

• The Korean Journal of Quaternary Research
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.33-38
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• 2003

This study is conducted to examine the data of climate or environmental change in the northeastern Asia during the last glacial maximum. A remarkable feature of the 18,000 BP biome reconstructions for China is the mid-latitude extention of steppe and desert biomes to the modem eastern coast. Terrestrial deposits of glacial maximum age from the northern part of Yellow Sea suggest that this region of the continental shelf was occupied by desert and steppe vegetation. And the shift from temperate forest to steppe and desert implies conditions very much drier than present in eastern Asia. Dry conditions might be explained by a strong winter monsoon and/or a weak summer monsoon. A very strong depression of winter temperatures at LGM. has in the center of continent has influenced in northeast Asia similarly. The vegetation of Hokkaido at LGM was subarctic thin forest distributed on the northern area of middle Honshu and cool and temperate mixed forest at southern area of middle Honshu in Japan. The vegetation landscape of mountain- and East coast region of Korea was composed of herbaceous plants with sparse arctic or subarctic trees. The climate of yellow sea surface and west region of Korea was much drier and temperate steppe landscape was extended broadly. It is supposed that a temperate desert appeared on the west coast area of Pyeongan-Do and Cheolla-Do of Korea. The reconstruction of year-round conditions much colder than today right across China, Korea and Japan is consistent with biome reconstruction at the LGM.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.103-110
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• 2018

Backgrounds: In arid grasslands, wells are subject to heavy trampling and grazing pressure, which can increase vulnerability to local land degradation. To investigate trampling and grazing, we surveyed plant communities at three well sites in the desert steppe of Mongolia, using 1600-m line transects from the wells. The sites (Bshrub, Sshrub, and shrubL) differed by concomitant shrub type (big shrub, small shrub, and shrub-limited) and livestock pressure (light, medium, and heavy). A plant classification scheme based on edibility and morphology (rosette or creeping type) was used to separate grazing and trampling effects on plant communities. Results: Edible plants were dominant at all sites but a fraction of grazing- and trampling-tolerant plants increased in the order Bshrub, Sshrub, and shrubL, following livestock pressure. Clear transition zones from inedible to edible plant groups were recognized but at different locations and ranges among the sites. Trampling-tolerant plants explained 90% of inedible plants at Sshrub with camels and horses, but grazing-tolerant plants prevailed (60%) at shrubL with the largest livestock number. Plant coverage increased significantly along the transects at Bshrub and Sshrub but showed no meaningful change at shrubL. Herbaceous plant biomass showed significant positive and negative trends at Bshrub and shrubL, respectively. Conclusions: Both grazing and trampling can produce larger fractions of inedible plants; in this, camel and horses can have considerable effects on desert-steppe plant communities through trampling.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.711-715
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• 2013

To investigate the effect of restricted grazing time on behavior of Tan sheep on desert steppe, forty 4-months old male Tan sheep with an original body weight (BW) of $15.62{\pm}0.33$ kg were randomly allocated to 4 grazing groups which corresponded to 4 different restricted grazing time treatments of 2 h/d (G2), 4 h/d (G4), 8 h/d (G8) and 12 h/d (G12) access to pasture. The restricted grazing times had a significant impact on intake time, resting time, ruminating time, bite rate and movement. As the grazing time decreased, the proportion of time spent on intake, bite rate and grazing velocity significantly (p<0.05) increased, but resting and ruminating time clearly (p<0.05) decreased. The grazing months mainly depicted effect on intake time and grazing velocity. In conclusion, by varying their foraging behavior, Tan sheep could improve grazing efficiency to adapt well to the time-limited grazing circumstance.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.30-42
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• 2018

Background: The southern and eastern parts of the Gobi Desert area are a unique dry ecosystem with a diverse regional desert, semi-desert, and mountain dry steppe flora. This area habitat is located at the overlap of different floristic regions; on its northeast side, Central Asian desert flora is dominating, and on the eastern side, East Asian flora is observed. The comprehensive survey was carried out to find the floral diversity of the medicinal plants on the region. Methods: All recorded species in this study were based on the collected voucher specimens between June and August in the year 2017. Results: We recorded 23 families, 57 genera, and 78 species of vascular plants. The families Asteraceae (15 species), Fabaceae (10 species), and Amaranthaceae (10 species) were represented most in the study area, while Caragana (5 species), Salsola (4 species), and Arnebia (3 species) were the most common genera found. Conclusion: Conservation status for remarkable species was also reviewed based on the literature. Around the study area, 24 species as "sub-endemic," 10 species as "very rare," 4 species as "rare," 1 species as "alien," 13 species as "relict," 10 species as "Red Book," 2 species as "endangered (EN)," 3 species as "vulnerable (VU)," 3 species as "near threatened (NT)," and 2 species as "least concern (LC)" plants are growing.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.105-114
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• 2013

Desertification of the East Asia area induced by human's indiscriminate activities and natural causes has gradually expanded and demanded scientific research for monitoring and predicting land cover condition. Therefore, this research classified land types which were compared to MODIS land cover and analyzed the extent of barren zone effecting Korea through yellow dust using S10-DAY MVC NDVI from SPOT between 1999 and 2011. This study used unsupervised classification after processing NDVI Correction and Water Mask for eliminating noise values included in the data for enhancement of classification accuracy. The results of analysis are that there are active variations near the borders of desert, especially the Mongolian steppe and the Gobi Desert in central Asia. In addition, the extent of entire desert has been decreased in the middle of the last decade, although desertification is in going on in East Asia.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.34-44
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• 2017

Background: Monitoring terrestrial vegetation cover condition is important to evaluate its current condition and to identify potential vulnerabilities. Due to simplicity and low cost, point intercept method has been widely used in evaluating grassland surface and quantifying cover conditions. Field-based digital photography method is gaining popularity for the purpose of cover estimate, as it can reduce field time and enable additional analysis in the future. However, the caveats and uncertainty among field-based vegetation cover estimation methods is not well known, especially across a wide range of cover conditions. We compared cover estimates from point intercept and digital photography methods with varying sampling intensities (25, 49, and 100 points within an image), across 61 transects in typical steppe, forest steppe, and desert steppe in central Mongolia. We classified three photosynthetic groups of cover important to grassland ecosystem functioning: photosynthetic vegetation, non-photosynthetic vegetation, and bare soil. We also acquired normalized difference vegetation index from satellite image comparison with the field-based cover. Results: Photosynthetic vegetation estimates by point intercept method were correlated with normalized difference vegetation index, with improvement when non-photosynthetic vegetation was combined. For digital photography method, photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic vegetation estimates showed no correlation with normalized difference vegetation index, but combining of both showed moderate and significant correlation, which slightly increased with greater sampling intensity. Conclusions: Results imply that varying greenness is playing an important role in classification accuracy confusion. We suggest adopting measures to reduce observer bias and better distinguishing greenness levels in combination with multispectral indices to improve estimates on dry matter.

• The Korean Journal of Ecology
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.135-140
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• 2000

The Government of Mongolia approved establishment of the Mongolian LTER network in December 1997. In June 1998, a seminar was organized by the Mongolian Academy of Sciences to initiate the program. Dr. James Gosz of the US LTER program keynoted the seminar. A Mongolian LTER Steering Committee was established to organize the network and to develop guidelines for its management. This Committee designated Hovsgol National Park in northern Mongolia as the first Mongolian LTER network site. Other potential sites are presently being considered. including study sites in steppe grassland and desert locations. The primary goals of the Mongolian LTER Network are to study human impacts on Mongolia's environment; with a focus on short-term impacts of nomadic grazing on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and long-term climate change impacts on more pristine environments in the protected areas. There are at least two additional goals: to provide information and advice on how best to protect Mongolia's pristine environments, and to train Mongolian students to work on environmental problems to encourage the growth of expertise for making sound environmental decisions.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.651-661
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• 1996

Algeria is located at the Mediterranean coast of north Africa, 90% of its population is concentrated in the coastal area which is mainly devoted to agriculture. Highland steppe and vast desert climate have determined its food culture. Long arab domination has influenced food of Algeria which has also undergone certain impact of Spanish, Turkish and French occupation. A variety of agricultural products, vegetables, fruits, spices and herbs have determined cooking method and food combination of Algeria. It use neither pork nor alcohol. Its main food consists of bread made from wheat flour and couscous cooked with semoule, Mechuwi, roast lamb and chorba, mixed soup are also typical foods of this region. For climatic reason lamb and chicken are prefered. Energy efficient method is applied to cooking through using oil for saute and water for boiling. Under european influence, Algerian salad used dressing for leaf vegetables, root and other kind vegetables were boiled. Serving with cake and cookies as dessert may possibly be the influence from the French occupation. The cake and cookie are made of wheat flour or other grain flour and take a specific form to be fried sweet with honey. Herbs and spices are widely used in cooking which are easily cultivated in household: mint, basil, rosemary, bayleaf, thyme, sage, fennel, marjoram, coriander, celery. Garlic, onion, piment, red pepper, cinammon are also widely used in an ordinary cooking. Reasonable food combination and economic cooking method could be subject of Algerian food study.

• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.166-185
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• 2015

Recently, as an enonomic importance of the Eurasian Continent raises, the necessity of east-west connecting ancient transport roads research is increasing. Although domestic research of eastern-western international exchange in the Eurasia is not yet very active, the studies of history, archaeology, art history, folklore, costume history have been advanced steadily. An attention for the exchange through steppe route originated from the interest in Korean folk and Korean culture and the research range is extending to Xiungnu, Kurgan culture as a direct investigation on the remains of Mongolia and Kazakhstan has been achieved constantly. The art history has been leading the research of exchange which is based on desert and oasis. The field research of Iran, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, etc progressed in various routes, and the research on diverse topics including Silla's golden culture, transmission of glass, and the Buddhism is improving. Research on the maritime silk road is weaker, compared to other parts. Buddhist and Hindu temples of Southeast Asia attracted some interest to people, but the research should focus on the restoration of sea route and consideration of its meaning. Research of this part is expected to be more activative, as domestic researchers investigate Don Son culture and Sa Huynh culture of Vietnam by themselves. From now on, we should focus on topics that are not directly connected to Korean history, and Korean culture. Because it is also our duty to study and conserve the culture of entire human community.