• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.48-54
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• 2024

This study conducted a survey from April 2021 to December 2022 to investigate habitat factors affecting bird diversity in the region between Cheonwangbong Peak and Aghwibong in Baekdudaegan protected area, South Korea. Since the region has a spatial scale of 736.4 km² and is an area where a wide variety of habitats are mixed, we selected 20 survey areas of 3 km x 3 km by analysis of habitat homogeneity. As a result of analyzing the relationship between habitat environment and bird diversity in the survey area, it was found that the diversity of bird communities was directly or indirectly related to the diversity of terrestrial insects, slope, average habitat area, mean size of patches, elevation, and forest type, and distance from agricultural land. The slope of habitat, forest type, and distance from agricultural land affect the occurrence of food sources directly and indirectly, and the average area of habitats and forest type is closely related to the structural diversity of habitats. Therefore, it is determined that the diversity of bird communities is affected by the amount of food generated within the habitat and the diversity of habitats. It is determined that the relationship between bird communities and habitat environments in this surveyed region can be basic ecological data for establishing forest management measures to promote the diversity of bird communities.

• Proceedings of the National Institute of Ecology of the Republic of Korea
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.122-128
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• 2022

To present the spatial variation of fish assemblages in the Geum River in Korea, the concept of beta diversity (β-diversity) estimates based on the variance of the community data table was applied. Fish communities and environmental variables were collected from 13 sampling sites along the in mid-low reaches of the River. We calculated the β-diversity and local contribution to beta diversity (LCBD) values at each site depending on the two types of data, 'occurrence' with Jaccard and Sørensen dissimilarity coefficients, and 'abundance' with Hellinger distance. Multivariate and correlation analyses were also performed to determine the relationships between LCBD and other variables, such as community indices and physicochemical and hydrological factors. The β-diversity values of fish communities in the River were estimated as 0.218 and 0.145 for occurrence data table with Jaccard and Sørensen respectively, and 0.268 for abundance data. Similar patterns of LCBD along the sampling sites were detected in two dissimilarity measurements of occurrence table, and LCBD values with abundance data were slightly different. The LCBD values are strongly correlated with community indices, and also suitable for indicating the uniqueness of fish assemblages. However, further research is needed to determine the LCBD value as an indicator of environmental variability.

• Proceedings of the National Institute of Ecology of the Republic of Korea
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.129-138
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• 2021

Living modified organisms (LMOs) are managed by seven government agencies according to their use in South Korea. The Ministry of Environment is responsible for LMOs used for environmental remediation. This study aimed to develop guidelines for assessing potential risks posed by transgenic plants used for remediation to insect ecosystems by investigating arthropod communities in sunflower fields. A total of 2,350 insects and spiders belonging to 134 species of 10 orders and 71 families were collected from sunflower fields over four growth stages ranging from anthesis to seed maturity. At the R3 phase of flower-bud formation, Chironomidae sp. of a decomposer insect guild presented the highest density, while Apis mellifera of a pollinator guild was the most abundant in the R5.8 phase of flowering. During the R7 seed-filling phase and the R9 phase of seed maturity, herbivorous Pochazia shantungensis predominated. During the R9 phase, richness and diversity indices of arthropod communities were distinctly lower whereas their dominance indices were significantly higher than those at other phases. In addition, the composition of arthropod communities was strongly correlated not only with the sampling date, but also with the sampling method depending on the growth stage of sunflowers. Our results suggest that appropriate sampling timing and methods should be considered in advance and that long-term field trials that cover a variety of environmental conditions should be carried out to evaluate potential risks to insect ecosystems.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.110 no.3
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• pp.308-321
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• 2021

The purpose of this study was to analyze domestic research trends over the past 20 years and future direction of forest ecology using text mining. A total of 1,015 academic papers and keywords data related to forest ecology were collected by the "Research and Information Service Section" and analyzed using big data analysis programs, such as Textom and UCINET. From the results of word frequency and N-gram analyses, we found domestic studies on forest ecology rapidly increased since 2011. The most common research topic was "species diversity" over the past 20 years and "climate change" became a major topic since 2011. Based on CONCOR analysis, study subjects were grouped intoeight categories, such as "species diversity," "environmental policy," "climate change," "management," "plant taxonomy," "habitat suitability index," "vascular plants," and "recreation and welfare." Consequently, species diversity and climate change will remain important topics in the future and diversifying and expanding domestic research topics following global research trendsis necessary.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.32-48
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• 2024

Background: Longitudinal connectivity in river systems strongly affects biological components related to ecosystem functioning, thereby playing an important role in shaping local biodiversity and ecosystem health. Environmental DNA (eDNA)-based metabarcoding has an advantage of enabling to sensitively diagnose the presence/absence of species, becoming an efficient/effective approach for studying the community structure of ecosystems. However, little attention has been paid to eDNA-based biomonitoring for river systems, particularly for assessing the river longitudinal connectivity. In this study, by using eDNA we analyzed and compared species diversity and composition among artificial barriers to assess the longitudinal connectivity of the fish community along down-, mid- and upstream in the Hotancheon from the Geum River basin. Moreover, we investigated temporal variation in eDNA fish community structure and species diversity according to season. Results: The results of species detected between eDNA and conventional surveys revealed higher sensitivity for eDNA and 61% of species (23/38) detected in both methods. The results showed that eDNA-based fish community structure differs from down-, mid- and upstream, and species diversity decreased from down to upstream regardless of season. We found that there was generally higher species diversity at the study sites in spring (a total number of species across the sites [n] = 29) than in autumn (n = 27). Nonmetric multidimensional scaling and heatmap analyses further suggest that there was a tendency for community clusters to form in the down-, mid- and upstream, and seasonal variation in the community structure also existed for the sites. Dominant species in the Hotancheon was Rhynchocypris oxycephalus (26.07%) regardless of season, and subdominant species was Nipponocypris koreanus (16.50%) in spring and Odontobutis platycephala (15.73%) in autumn. Artificial barriers appeared to negatively affect the connectivity of some fish species of high mobility. Conclusions: This study attempts to establish a biological monitoring system by highlighting the versatility and power of eDNA metabarcoding in monitoring native fish community and further evaluating the longitudinal connectivity of river ecosystems. The results of this study suggest that eDNA can be applied to identify fish community structure and species diversity in river systems, although some shortcomings remain still need to be resolved.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.1050-1062
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• 2012

Concepts of science have been developed by occupying 'ecological niche' within conceptual ecology. The ecological niche is determined from the mutual effect between intellectual environmental of the learner and new concept, which few studies have been conducted. This study examined how the ecological niche of the concept of photosynthesis in $7^{th}$ grade is changed by instruction. The ecological niche was analyzed using 2 methods: (1) the change in the diversity of concepts, and (2) the change in the proximity of concepts based on the frequency and the relativeness score of the concepts. The concept of photosynthesis was analyzed in the 4 domains in the place of photosynthesis, products of photosynthesis, reactants of photosynthesis, and environmental factors. The results of this study are as follows: (1) reduced diversity of concepts, (2) increased frequency and relativeness score of the scientific concepts, and (3) increased proximity of the scientific concepts by instruction. With these results, the mutual effects of the concepts within the conceptual ecology have become active by class to differentiate the relationships between the concepts, which accordingly displayed their changes in status.

• Animal Systematics, Evolution and Diversity
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• no.spc9
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• pp.51-72
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• 2016

We surveyed the biodiversity of lepidopterous insects in Jindo Island using UV bucket trap in July 2016 to determine the relationship between surrounding environment and ecosystem in order to contribute to biodiversity conservation and management of coastal islands in Korea. Based on our survey results, a total of 262 lepidopterous insect species in 16 families were collected from Jindo Island. Members belonging to families Noctuidae and Geometridae made up approximately half of the total species (86 species [32.82%] in Noctuidae and 44 species [16.79] in Geometridae). There were 29 species (11.07%) belonging to Crambidae and 28 species (10.69%) belonging to Pyralidae. As a result of all collections based on previous literature and this study, a total of 730 species belonging to 34 families were collected from Jindo Island, including 33 protected species, 242 species (33.15%) belonging to Noctuidae (the most abundant), 124 species (16.99%) belonging to Geometridae, 79 species (10.82%) belonging to Crambidae, and 65 species (8.90%) belonging to Pyralidae. The most frequently collected species was Lamoria glaucalis in this syudy. Our results on the diversity of lepidopterous insects will provide basic information for future investigation on diverse changes in the ecosystem of Jindo Island, Korea.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.263-278
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• 2015

This study is intended to evaluate the value of functional aspect from the viewpoint of habitat. The indicators that are used in biotope evaluations are various, but most of them use the criteria to evaluate the naturality. This evaluation method cannot appropriately reflect the functional characteristics coming from relation to the surrounding biotope. In this study, the connectivity, cohesion and diversity between individual biotope are quantitatively measured by a landscape index. It is hard to draw the functional value of individual biotopes because the landscape index related to connectivity, cohesion and diversity comes from a landscape having a number of biotopes. The concept of contribution was used to overcome this limitation. The concept of contribution is to quantify how much each individual biotope contributes to the connectivity, cohesion, and diversity in a certain range of landscape by deriving the amount of change in the landscape index according to the presence or absence of each individual biotope. In order to understand the characteristics of evaluation results in functional aspect, this research has done a comparative analysis of the previous research findings in the same target area. According to the result of the research, individual biotopes such as artificial forests, fragmented natural forests, and small planting sites were highly rated.

• 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.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.102-107
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• 2021

The distribution pattern of species richness was determined by temperature. To examine the relationship between hemipteran richness and temperature, hemipteran species were collected using pitfall traps at six different oak forest sites with different annual mean temperatures in South Korea. Multiple linear regression analyses were conducted with mean annual temperature (MAT) and plant richness to evaluate differences in hemipteran richness. The influences of MAT and plant richness of study sites on hemipteran richness were examined by comparing three models (plant richness+MAT+MAT², plant richness+MAT, and MAT) or two models (plant richness+MAT and MAT). Hemipteran richness showed an inverse diversity pattern as a function of temperature, with higher species richness at lower temperature sites. Meanwhile, Aphididae showed a bell-shaped diversity pattern with the highest value at low medium temperatures. The regression analysis showed that hemipteran richness was affected by temperature and plant richness in their habitats.