• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.85-97
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• 2011

The tidal flats of Korea today have reduced by 40% in size compared to 1964. To manage this important habitat properly, development of well-organized and nationwide-applicable grading systems is required. There have been several assessment systems proposed previously in Korea, but they are critically flawed in that selected biological indicators are not adequate and grading criteria are obscure and arbitrary. We reviewed the indicators used in these previous evaluation systems (e.g., diversity indices, quantity and quality of benthic macrofauna, halophytes, water birds, etc.) and subsequently proposed new indicators and an improved grading scheme. For the quantitative assessment of macrobenthic community, biomass reflecting production and ecosystem function is recommended over density, which is much less discriminatory among habitats. Of biodiversity indices used, within-, between-habitat and regional biodiversity indices that accurately reflect sampling efforts are suggested. In addition, we proposed to include species rarity, ecosystem engineers, and the ecological quality index ISEP (Inverse function of Shannon-Wiener Evenness Proportion). As for halophytes, their low spatial coverage on benthic habitat suggests that their presence can be used as an ecological indicator of benthic habitat, regardless of their protective status. We stress the need to introduce 1) quantile approach for quantitative indicators (e.g., diversity, biomass, etc.) in relation to grading, 2) presence-absence approach for spatial or aggregate indicators (e.g., boundaries of halophytes and feeding ground of water birds) and 3) benthic habitat mapping that combines all of these indicators.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.11-26
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• 1994

The criteria which have been used for the assessment of wildlife conservation values and particularly botanical values during the last decade, 1969~1986, were reviewed in order to select an appropriate set of criteria applicable for Korea. Fifteen studies, including studies of particular sites reviews of ecological evaluation are reviewed. Four criteria, rarity, diversity, size & extent and naturalness were used in more than half of these studies reviewed. The sixteen components were arranged with the scale of the sites, in view of the Korean situation. The human Interference, ecological fragility. as well as rarity, etc. were major components to be considered at small scale sites. In the contrary, area, diversity position in ecological and geographical unit, and naturalness, etc. considered the major components at larger scale sites. The components such as uniqueness, typicalness, research and educational, etc. were considered both applicable. Although this criteria should be tested by applications in the field and amended there after, It will be one of the first-step to evaluate of the protected areas, as well as specific plant species in the future.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.395-401
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• 2008

Genetic diversity and differentiation within or among nine populations of introduced fish, largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides were assessed by AFLP. The AFLP analysis using three primer combinations generated 299.2. AFLP bands and percentage of polymorphic bands were similar in those nine populations, ranging 14.1 to 21%. Heterozygosity and genetic diversity within or among populations were quite low for all of these populations with average values ranging from 0.054 to 0.067 and from 0.069 to 0.085, respectively. Analyses of pairwise distance and genetic similarity among nine populations of Micropterus salmoides also revealed the similar results with low genetic differentiation one another. Although pairwise Fst values were low, they were indicated a clear distinct genetic differentiation among the nine populations. These results indicate that very small population of the largemouth bass was first introduced to Paldang reservoir and they are widely spread at most of aquatic habitats in Korea.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.119-122
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• 2015

It is very useful and important to see the status and change of necessary parts in a short period through selecting and observing the bioindicator continually to forecast and prepare the future. Especially, living things are so closely related to the environment that the indicator between the environment and living things shows close interrelationship. Also, the indicator related to environment provides information about representative or decisive environmental phenomenon and is used to simplify complicated facts. Considering wide range of background and application including various indicators such as the change-, destruction-, pollution-, and restoration of habitats, climate change, and species diversity, the closest category includes "environmental indicator," "ecological indicator," and "biodiversity indicator." The selection and use of bioindicator is complicated and difficult. The necessary conditions for the indicator selection are flexible and greatly depend on the goals of investigation such as the indicator for biological diversity investigation of specific area, the indicator for habitat destruction, the indicator for climate change, and the indicator for polluted area. It should meet many various conditions to select a good indicator. In this study, eleven selection standards are established based on domestic and overseas studies on bioindicator selection: species with clear classification and ecology, species distributed in geographically widespread area, species that show clear habitat characteristics, species that can provide early warning for a change, species that are easy and economically benefited for the investigation, species that have many independent individual groups and that is not greatly affected by the size of individual groups, species that is thought to represent the response of other species, species that represent the ecology change caused by the pressure of human influence, species for which researches on climate change have been done, species that is easy to observe, appears for a long time and forms a group with many individuals, and species that are important socially, economically, and culturally.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.319-325
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• 2007

We monitored the butterfly community dynamics from March to October for the three years (2002, 2003, 2004). The study areas were consisted of the five sectors with pine forest (Pinus rigida) and mixed oak forests at Mt. Midong in Chungwongun, Chungchungbukdo, Korea. We found that the total numbers of butterfly species were 59 species and the total individuals were 1,513. There was no change the number of species (44 species) during the study period but the composition of species and the number of individuals were different such as 414, 561, and 538, respectively. The most abundant species were Minois dryas (25%) in 2002, Polygonia c-aureum (24%) in 2003, and P. c-aureum (22%) in 2004. On the contrary, the number of singleton species was 20 species in 2002, 15 species in 2003, and 15 species in 2004. We found that there was the seasonal difference in species composition of butterfly community. The species diversity of butterfly community was the highest at sector 4 and sector 5 and lowest at sector 2. Main reason of the butterfly dynamics was strongly supposed to the human activity. We could suggest that the butterfly monitoring study must be a good way to measure the change of butterfly habitats including anthropogenic activity and the natural disturbances.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.142-163
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• 2009

Taebaek city is located in the mountainous plateau area therefore the major industry was coal industry. According to dramatically declining of the major industry, Taebaek city is need to alternative industry which associated with considering the geographical characteristics of natural tourism resources for increasing the local economy. On the basis of these reasons, this study can be suggested ecological planning and mitigation of deterioration technique about the these study site. That is the reserved area for mountainous experience theme park. As the results of environmental ecology assessment are following as; The natural ecosystem areas, multi-layer structure forest such as forest of Pinus densiflora, forest of Quercus mongolica and deciduous forest have a high value of nature, diversity and potential. In addition, wild bird habitats were important area as a inhabitation, breeding, feeding and hiding. Therefore, on these areas should be preserved. Also, it needs to conserve on there such as more than three types of wild bird inhabitate areas, the fringe of high biological diversity, the wetland that have got good vegetation condition and the function of amphibia, reptiles crossing. In addition, inhabitation, the waterway of wetland form that have got wide waterside width needs to conserve. In conclusion, on the basis of analysis results such as conditions of plan, environment, ecological assessments, survey informations are able to suggest the connectivity of the axis of forest and management plan. Moreover, in the part of forest restoration plan, we suggest the plan of transplant for a compensation of damaged forest by land use.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.6-24
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• 2019

We have investigated the impact of anthropogenic and natural disturbances on regeneration, composition and diversity in some temperate forests of Bhagirathi Catchment Area of Garhwal Himalaya. The forests were categorized on the basis of canopy cover and magnitude of disturbance into highly, moderately and least disturbed classes. The dominant tree species at lower elevation were Pinus roxburghii and Quercus leucotrichophora, while Abies pindrow, Q. semecarpifolia and Rhododenron arboreum were the dominant species at the upper elevational forests. Cythula tomentosa and Indegophera heterentha were the dominant shrub species present in all the forests. Similarly, Circium wallichii and Oxalis corniculata were the dominant herb species found in all forests (except Q. leucotrichophora forest), whereas Thalictrum foliolosum and Viola pilosa were noticed in each forest (except P. roxburghii forest). The tree density values oscillated between $400{\pm}10\;trees\;ha^{-1}$ to $750{\pm}89.1\;trees\;ha^{-1}$ which generally decreased from lower to higher disturbance regimes however, the total basal cover value was highest ($88.1{\pm}23.6m^2\;ha^{-1}$) in highly disturbed forest and lowest ($25.8{\pm}2.2m^2\;ha^{-1}$) in moderately disturbed forest. The shrub and herb densities were maximum in least disturbed forest, while the young regenerating individuals i.e., sapling and seedling were observed increasing from high to low disturbed forests which reflected that the forest fragmentation adversely affected the regeneration. However, A. pindrow and P. roxburghii were found invariably encroaching the habitats of R. arboreum and Q. leucotrichophora at various altitudes, respectively. The Canonical Correspondence Analysis clearly indicated that the elevation and lopping intensity have more impact on trees, while shrub and herbs were more influenced by elevation, canopy cover, light attenuation and soil erosion. Pinus roxburghii was the only species which was affected by heavy litter removal and forest fire.

• Journal of Species Research
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.161-175
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• 2019

During a comprehensive investigation of indigenous prokaryotic species in Korea, a total of 46 bacterial strains assigned to the classes Alphaproteobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, Deltaproteobacteria, and Epsilonproteobacteria were isolated from a diversity of habitats including freshwater, seawater, brackish water, ginseng soil, plant roots, natural caves, and tidal flats. Based on their high 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities (>98.7%) and formation of strongly-supported phylogenetic clades with the closest type species, each strain was assigned to an independent, predefined bacterial species. Since there were no published or official reports regarding the isolation of these 46 species in Korea, here we report them as new species to Korea: 34 species in 14 families in the five orders of Alphaproteobacteria, 10 species in five families in the three orders of Betaproteobacteria, one species of Deltaproteobacteria and one species of Epsilonproteobacteria. Gram reaction, colony and cell morphology, basic biochemical characteristics, isolation source, and strain IDs are described in the species description section.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.60-73
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• 2024

Background: The available information on terrestrial pest gastropods and their impact on the environment worldwide is scarce and outdated. The present study aimed to address this gap by conducting the first comprehensive survey of pest gastropods in the Nuwara Eliya District, an important vegetable growing area in the highlands of Sri Lanka. Eighty agricultural lands were surveyed over two years by establishing ten 1 m2 sampling plots per crop type in each agricultural land. Geo-coordinates, air temperature, elevation, relative humidity, daily rainfall, soil pH, species richness and abundance were recorded for rainy and non-rainy periods. The relationship between species composition and environmental variables was analyzed using multi-regression models and distribution maps. Results: Out of the 14 species recorded in agricultural lands, nine were identified as exotic pest species. Species abundance (t = 4.69, p < 0.05) and diversity was higher in the rainy period and the dominant species during this period were Bradybaena similaris (t = 2.69, p < 0.05) and Deroceras reticulatum (t = 2. 46, p < 0.05). Eggs and estivating adults were found in soil and under decaying organic matter during the non-rainy period. The exotic species showed broader preferences for the measured environmental factors and showed a wider range in distribution compared to the native species. Variation in pest gastropod composition was significantly accounted for by elevation, relative humidity, soil pH and daily rainfall. Additionally, the species richness and abundance varied across locations due to the combined effects of elevation, crop type and stage, and field type. Conclusions: The study emphasizes the importance of understanding the biology and ecology of gastropod pests to develop effective management strategies. By considering the influence of environmental factors and implementing appropriate soil management techniques, such as targeting specific habitats and crop stages, it is possible to mitigate pest populations and minimize their impact on agricultural lands. Overall, this research contributes valuable insights into the dynamics and interactions of terrestrial gastropods in agricultural ecosystems, supporting sustainable pest management practices.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.11-22
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• 2011

This study was established to build and suggest the Ecological Performance Standards for replaced wetlands as the mitigation strategies for the construction projects. The request performance and assessment factors and standards were derived by bibliographic review and verified by the field survey for the reference wetlands. And the weights for each factor were derived by AHP(Analytical Hierarchy Process) method. The results are as follows : 1) Assessment factors were induced by in-depth research of many wetland assessment models and benchmarks evaluated ecological functions. This study proposed final 12 assessment factors through ecological specialist and experts interviews added with literature analysis. 2) 10 natural wetlands were selected as Reference Wetlands as the measure to propose assessment factors and assessment criteria. Those reference wetlands are well-conserved inland natural wetlands classified to the one having worthy to conserve (grade "high") according to RAM(Rapid Assessment Method). Reference wetlands chosen by the study are Parksilji, Jeongyangji, Mulkubi, Bawineupkubi, Jilnalneup, Jinchonneup, Doomoso, Haepyung wetland, Whangjeong wetland, and Whapo wetland. The research developed assessment criteria for the performance assessment factors based on several explorations of the reference wetlands. 3) "Requiring performance" of replaced wetlands is defined as "to carry out similar or same ecological functions provided by natural wetlands", in overall. The detailed requiring performances are as follows; ${\bullet}$ to play a role of wildlife habitats ${\bullet}$ to have biological diversity ${\bullet}$ to connect with other ecosystems ${\bullet}$ to provide water environment to perform good ecological functions 4) The assessment factors for required performance are categorized by wildlife habitat function, biological diversity, connectivity of adjacent ecosystem, and water environment. Wildlife habitat category is consisted of wildlife habitat creation, size of replacement wetland, and site suitability. Biological diversity category contains the number of plant species, the number of wildlife species, and number of protected species as the sub-factors. Connectivity of adjacent ecosystem is comprised of wildlife corridor, green network and distance from other ecosystem. Finally, water environment make up with water quality, depth of water body, and shape of waterfront. 5) Finally, every assessment factors were verified and weighted by the AHP methods and the final standards were proposed. The weights of factors of requiring performance suggested as habitat (0.280), connectivity (0.261), diversity (0.260), hydraulic environment (0.199). And those of detailed sub-factors are site suitability (0.118), protected species (0.096), distance to neighbor ecosystem (0.093), habitat creating (0.091), green corridor (0.090) etc.