• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.565-577
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to understand the factors influencing the decline and the patterns of changes in Abies nephrolepis populations on Mt. Seorak. We installed permanent quadrats in the areas of the Gwittagicheongbong (peak), Gwanmoneungseon (ridge), and the Seorak Falls and have monitored the community structure, population dynamics, radial growth, and vitality in the quadrats since 2009. Excluding the Seorak Falls, the three research sites showed a three-layer structure in which the low-tree layer forms the canopy. Major tree species were Khingan fir, Korean arborvitae, Mongolian oak, Erman's birch, and Korean maple. The significance of Khingan fir in Seorak Falls decreased from 45.3% in 2009 to 36.8% in 2018. The number of shoots ($DBH{\geq}5cm$) was highest at 1,800 individuals/ha and 1,700 individuals/ha at the Gwittagicheongbong 2 and the Gwanmoneungseon, respectively. The mortality rates over the past 10 years were very high, at 38.3% and 35.3%, respectively, in the Gwittagicheongbong 1 and Seorak Falls. The most stable inverse J-shaped distribution in the Gwittagicheongbong 1 area was shown in the size-frequency distribution of the Khingan fir populations. The average annual ring growth of the Khingan fir was 0.96 ~ 1.73 mm/year, and the ring growth tended to decrease in the areas of Gwittagicheongbong 1, Gwanmoneungseon, and Seorak Falls, where the vitality was low. If the monitoring process continues, it will be possible to obtain basic data for the conservation and management of subalpine vegetation.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.457-466
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• 2011

The objectives of this study are to produce level 3 type LULC map and analysis of phenological features of North Korea, ISODATA clustering of the 88scenes of MVC of MODIS NDVI in 2008 and 8scenes in 2009 was carried out. Analysis of phenological phases based mapping method was conducted, In level 2 type map, the confusion matrix was summarized and Kappa coefficient was calculated. Total of 27 typical habitat types that represent the dominant species or vegetation density that cover land surface of North Korea in 2008 were made. The total of 27 classes includes the 17 forest biotopes, 7 different croplands, 2 built up types and one water body. Dormancy phase of winter (${\sigma}^2$ = 0.348) and green up phase in spring (${\sigma}^2$ = 0.347) displays phenological dynamics when much vegetation growth changes take place. Overall accuracy is (851/955) 85.85% and Kappa coefficient is 0.84. Phenological phase based mapping method was possible to minimize classification error when analyzing the inaccessible land of North Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.73-85
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• 2005

Natural disturbance and environmental pressure on natural ecosystems are gradually increasing, and the cause is significantly related to large-scale environmental pollution, global warming, decreasing biodiversity and habitat fragmentation. Environmental impact assessment(EIA) in Korea has been focused on distribution and composition of fauna and flora as major evaluation aspects in ecosystem assessment. It is well known that those characteristics of flora and fauna strongly depend on characteristics and quality of habitat and ecosystem. However, there is no items to assess habitat and ecosystems of spatial ecological system in EIA. Many countries are trying to develop the EIA items to consider the spatial characteristics of habitat and ecosystem and those ecological dynamics as well as species level. In this stream, landscape ecology is emerging discipline to examine spatial pattern and ecological process within/between habitats and ecosystems. Landscape ecological analysis, as a special tool for ecosystem evaluation, has been appropriately adopted to the EIA system in the advanced countries. This review paper tries to introducing the possibilities of landscape ecological concept into the Korean EIA system.

• The Korean Journal of Ecology
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.51-58
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• 1990

The rates of litter production and decomposition of litters from grasslands and forests in Mt. Guryong were studied. The annual litter production of Glycine soja showed the highest value 1950.88 g/$m^2$/yr in the grasslands and that in Quercus acutissima, as 2202.38 g/$m^2$/yr in the forests. The highest decay rate of the grasslands was found in G. soja as k=0.713 and that of the forests was in Salix koreensis as k=0.319. The Z values of k in the grasslands was higher than that in the forests. The shortest half-time of the litter decay in the grasslands was 0.9 years in G. soja and the longest one of the forests was S. koreensis as 2.1 years and the longest of all was Q. mongolica as 5.2 years. In the amount of total nitrogen of litters, G. soja was the highest of the grasslands and S. koreensis was the highest of the forest. The content of the total nitrogen in litters was directly propotional to the decay rates.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.111-118
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• 2016

In recent years, many research revealed plant-insect interactions are becoming unstable because of climate change, human activities and grazing effect. In this work, it is aimed to disclose that how climate of two different years is influencing on insect community at certain locality in Mongolia. The data on the insect community are collected, covering full flowering season from June to August in 2014 and 2015. In order to include all species of insects in Udleg Station, data was collected in three different sites. One of them was around edge of forest, another one was in ungrazed area or inside the fence that has been kept for more than 9 years and last one was in grazed area. Weather was a perceptible difference during two year's study. This climate differences significantly influenced on the insect community. In 2014, overall 305 insect species were recorded, in which 124 insect species in order of Diptera, 44 in Lepidoptera, 33 in Coleoptera, 31 in Hemiptera, and 73 in Hymenoptera were determined. But in 2015, these number of species noticeably decreased, and total 150 insect species were recorded, in which 58 in Diptera, 26 in Lepidoptera, 13 in Coleoptera, 12 in Hemiptera, and 41 in Hymenoptera were determined.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.191-196
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• 2006

This study was carried out to evaluate soil carbon cycling of a 36-year-old larch (Larix leptolepis) stand in Korea. The aboveground and soil organic carbon storage, litterfall, and soil respiration rates were measured over twoyear periods. The estimated aboveground biomass carbon storage and increment were 4220 gC $m^{-2}$ and 150 gC $m^{-2}\;yr^{-1}$, respectively. Mean organic carbon inputs by needle and total litterfall were 118 gC $m^{-2}\;yr^{-1}$ and 168 gC $m^{-2}\;yr^{-1}$, respectively. The aboveground carbon increment of the stand was similar to the annual input of carbon from total litterfall. The soil respiration rates correlated exponentially with the soil temperature at a depth of 20 cm ($R^2$ = 0.86). In addition, the exponential regression equation indicated a relatively strong positive relationship between the soil respiration rates and soil temperature, while there was no significant relationship between the soil respiration rates and the soil moisture content. The annual mean and total soil respiration rates were 0.40 g $CO_2\;m^{-2} h^{-1}$ and 3010 g $CO_2\;m^{-2}\;yr^{-1}$ over the two-year study period, respectively.

• Mycobiology
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• v.48 no.5
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• pp.392-398
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• 2020

This study was conducted to understand the dynamics of microbial communities of soil microorganisms, and their distribution and abundance in the indigenous microorganisms (IMOs) manipulated from humus collected from the forest near the crop field. The soil microorganisms originated from humus and artificially cultured microbial-based soil amendments were characterized by molecular and biochemical analyses. The bacterial population (2 × 10⁶~13 × 10⁶ CFU/g sample) was approximately 100-fold abundant than the fungal population (2 × 10⁴~8 × 10⁴ CFU/g sample). The 16S rDNA and ITS sequence analyses showed that the bacterial and fungal communities in humus and IMOs were mainly composed of Bacillus and Pseudomonas, and Trichoderma and Aspergillus species, respectively. Some of the bacterial isolates from the humus and IMOs showed strong inhibitory activity against soil-borne pathogenic fungi Fusarium oxysporum and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. These bacteria also showed the siderophore production activity as well as phosphate solubilizing activity, which are requisite traits for biological control of plant pathogenic fungi. These results suggest that humus and IMOs could be a useful resource for sustainable agriculture.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.19-31
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• 2021

The waste landfill that has been used as a park through a stabilization project to provide green space to local residents. Vegetation restoration is necessary for the landfill park project, but it is difficult to restore vegetation due to various disturbances in the landfill. This study analyzed the successional dynamics and ecological characteristics of Robinia pseudoacacia communities from the slopes of Noeul Park by applying the 7-stage successional hypothesis. As a result of the study, there was almost no intermediate successional stage. There are only the early successional stage which Robinia pseudoacacia has an absolute dominance of 100% in the crown and middle layers, and the degeneration successional stage which formed by the introduction of Morus alba. This result showed that the succession of Robinia pseudoacacia communities were not able to proceed to the climax forest due to various disturbances in the waste landfill. Therefore, it was analyzed that it is necessary to induce the succession through intermediate steps such as Morus alba, since it is difficult to transition from Robinia pseudoacacia community to the native Quercus spp. community.

• Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.26 no.12
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• pp.708-714
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• 2023

This study reports a new record of freshwater fish Macrognathus aral (Bloch & Schneider) from Aiechu-Kalikhola tributary of the Maukhola river in Sarpang, Bhutan. The species was found in shoal of the tributary and was identified using its morphometric characters. It can be identified and distinguished from its congeners reported in Bhutan by dorsal fin rays XIX, 47, anal fin rays III, 52, rostral plates 28, pectoral fin rays 19, caudal fin rays 15, soft rayed part of dorsal and anal fin separated by a notch from rounded caudal fin, and presence of four ocelli at the base of dorsal fins. Further studies are needed to better understand its distribution, ecology, and population dynamics in the country. A key to species belonging to Mastacembelidae of Bhutan including the new record is provided.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.183-190
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• 2009

Characterization of the analysis of forest vegetation, soil environmental conditions and water quality were performed from March 2003 to March 2007. The two basins were characterized by cultivated area (Kaesim reservoir) and mountain area (Jangchan reservoir), and divided into eleven small basins, where dynamics of pollutants, forest vegetation and soil environmental conditions were surveyed. The vegetation can be divided into 10 types by $Z\ddot{u}rich$-Montpellier school's method. Pearson coefficients between vegetation type and water quality were correlated with dissolved oxygen (DO) in the Quercus variabilis community at the 5% level and total phosphorus (TP) in the Larix leptolepis plantation at the 1% level. Especially total phosphorous and total nitrogen increased in small basins where the proportion of cultivated and residential area increased. The analysis of influences of pollutant discharge on water quality showed that pollutant charge was very low in forest land area ($Y_{T-P}$=-0.0017X+0.2215, r=0.16, $Y_{COD}$=- 0.0395X+8.5051 r=0.47). The soil types of western area were comparatively simple, but those of eastern area were complicated with regosols, red-yellow soils, lithosoles, etc. The pH, total solid (TS) and volatile substance (VS) of the forest and agricultural land soils collected in each site were 5.4~6.9, 75.8~80.2%, and 3.80%~5.80%, respectively. According to the analytical result of soil environmental conditions, heavy metal contents fell short to the mean value of natural conditions. Runoff amount (Y) and depth of topsoil (X) were negatively correlated, $Y_{ron}=-1.0088X_{top}+35.378$ (r=0.68). The correlation was much lower in up-stream but much higher in down-stream, because permeation into soil particle was larger on down-stream due to its more or less gentle slope. Pearson coefficients between soil pH and water pH were statistically significant at 1% level.