• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.271-285
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• 2014

Aluminum flows into the river from the abandoned mine leachate, industrial wastewater, and sewage and is responsible for acute toxicity in aquatic organisms. Recently, the number of reports have indicated the increased toxicity in a variety of aquatic organisms' due to the aluminum toxicity. In this study, we reviewed the toxicity of aluminum on aquatic invertebrates, fishes and amphibians and suggested the guideline for management of aluminum residues in aquatic environment and strategies for aluminum toxicity evaluation. In aquatic animals aluminum complexes evoke gill dysfunction primarily, the cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, oxidative stress, disruption of endocrine function, reproductive success, metabolism and homeostasis. Notably, at environmentally relevant concentration, aluminum complex can alter the hormone levels in fish in acidic condition. Further, since the solubility of aluminum is higher in the acidic and basic conditions, thus it is likely that the toxic effects of aluminum may not only occur in acidic water near the abandoned mines but also in lakes and rivers, where pH is raised by algal bloom.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.153-165
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• 2012

This study investigated the frequent mistakes and the causes of the alternative conceptions in the animal classification by using the questionnaire and interview with the middle school students (N=300). As results, some students have difficulties classifying suggested animals into vertebrates or invertebrates : snakes (31.7%), shrimps (28.3%), turtles (25.6%), frogs (24.7%), and starfish (10.7%) in order of precedence. These errors seemed to be caused by intuitive thinking over characteristics of physical motions and appearance of suggested animals, wrong inference from comparing to features of familiar animals and the lack of observation experience of the vertebrate backbone. Furthermore, the results showed that relatively many students made a mistake classifying subgroup members of vertebrates such as classifying salamanders into the class Reptilia (45.3%) and turtles into Amphibia (40.3%). It is likely that those errors are affected by ambiguousness of classification terminology (e.g. the term of Amphibia) and weak ability in relating the physiological and ecological feature to standard of classification feature. In addition, sociocultural factors could influence animal classification as 'bat in birds', 'whale in fish, and 'penguin in mammals'. The present study implied that teaching and learning animal classification may require an appropriate guide focused on activities to explore major characteristics used for the animal classification standard through providing more chances of animal observation rather than the cramming method of learning induced by technical memorizing.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.173-178
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• 2011

BACKGROUND: Starfish is one of major sea invertebrates that have become a serious economic threat to aquacultural farms in Korea. Much effort has sacrificed to reduce the economic losses of the farms by predatory starfish, including developing and searching biological resources for medicinal and agricultural purposes. In the present study, we investigated aphicidal activity of the extracts from the starfish Asterina pectinifera against green peach aphid. METHODS AND RESULTS: Fresh starfishes were cut into small pieces, homogenized and soaked in methanol. The methanol extracts were centrifuged and the resulting supernatant was subjected to aphicidal activity assays and a series of silica gel column chromatography. More than 70% mortality of aphids were observed by the extracts at a concentration of 1,000 mg/L, exhibiting dose-dependent mortality. TOF-MS analyses detected polyhydroxysteroid as a main aphicidal compound from the starfish extracts. Transmission electronic microscopy could demonstrate that the extracts with polyhydroxysteroid caused aphids death by affecting their epicuticular membrane. CONCLUSION(s): This is the first report of aphicidal activity of the starfish Asterina pectinifera extracts against green peach aphid. Starfish biological resources may be used as a potential candidate for developing a new type natural insecticide.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.307-317
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• 2011

Ground beetle fauna of Mt. Bangtaesan in Inje-gun, Gangwon-do was investigated from June to October in 2010. Ground beetles were collected by pitfall trapping. A total of 34 species of 18 genera belonging to 7 families were identified from 1,041 collected ground beetles. Species richness was high in Pterostichinae (15 species, 44.1%), Carabinae (7 species, 20.6%), Harpalinae (4 species, 11.8%), Nebriinae (3 species, 8.8%) and others (5 species, 14.7%). Dominant species were Synuchus spp. (260 individuals, 25.0%), Aulonocarabus semiopacus (218 individuals, 20.9%), and Pterostichus audax (205 individuals, 19.7%) in order. Korean endemic species were collected 564 individuals belonging to 10 species. By principal component analysis (PCA), species distribution and abundance of ground beetles were different depending on habitat characteristics of vegetation, surrounding environment and feeding habitat. Carabinae and Pterostichinae which live in the forest were preferred in hardwoods and coniferous in the Bangtansan Natural Recreation Forest, while Callistinae and Harpalinae were collected in forest adjacent to grasslands. Overall, differences of habitat environments within forest are important factors associated with distribution of ground beetles. This result will provide useful informations with establishment of conservation program and long-term monitoring against environmental change within mountain by using ground beetles.

• Korean Journal of Ichthyology
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.300-305
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• 2015

The characteristics of 11 spawning sites in the natural environment of the Korean endemic species, Liobagrus somjinensis were investigated in the Yocheon (stream) of Seomjingang (river), located in Sikjeong-dong, Namwon-si, Jeollabuk-do, Korea from May to June 2015. The spawning sites had largely two parts, the upper region close to the surface of the waters and under region at bottom: the upper part was covered with a large and flat boulder over about 256 mm in size, whereas the under part consisted mainly of pebbles and sand. The large boulder put on the upper region may be seen as a bulwark for guarding eggs laid at the under (bottom) region. All the sites under the boulder showed a similar structure having a small hollow filled with an egg mass and an individual (male). The spawning bottoms left clean having no any benthic invertebrates and detritus. The egg shape was spherical, yellow and covered with a transparent membrane and the egg size was $3.31{\pm}0.15mm$ (n=30) in diameter. The development stage of each egg mass under the boulder was almost same from morula stage to formation stage of eye lens. The average number of eggs in 11 spawning sites was $121{\pm}35.5$ (84~176) and the average number of female fecundity in ovary was $143{\pm}31.3$ (110~232).

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.295-303
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• 2003

The tidal flat area of south and west coast consists of 2.4% of total land area of Korea. About 83% of tidal flat is located at the west coast, and the remaining tidal flat is located at the south coast. This tidal flat is also divided for administrative regions which are Gyeonggi Province(35.1%), Chungnam Province(12.7%) Jeonbuk Province(4.7%), Jeonnam Province(44.0%) and Gyeongnam Province(3.5%). The tidal flat of west coast of Korea is one of the most important stopover site for shorebirds on the East Asia-Australia Flyway. The tidal flat is used for feeding and resting place by migratory shorebirds. Generally, waterbirds including migratory shorebirds are considered as key species to show the superiority of wetland. By the criteria of Lamsar Convention in the basis of waterbird, at least 14 coastal wetlands in Korea have to be internationally important wetlands. The factors to affect the distribution of shorebirds at the certain tidal flat are closely related with 1) the distribution of benthic invertebrates, potential prey of shorebirds 2) the availability of roosting site 3) the size of tidal flat 4) the intensity of human disturbance. In this paper, we summarized the regional status of tidal flat of Korea and its conservation methods related with migratory waterbirds.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.888-895
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• 2016

The population ecology (Ecological characteristics) of Squalidus chankaensis tsuchigae were investigated at Geum River from March to November, 2013. This species inhabited midstream of the river where was mostly covered with cobble and sand. The depth of the habitat was 30~60 cm and velocity of stream was 2.27~4.88 cm/sec. The sex ratio of female to male was 1 : 0.86. They were sexually mature when they were over two years of age. The spawning period was from June to July with water temperatures from $25^{\circ}C$ to $25^{\circ}C$. Sexually matured individuals appeared over the two year of age. Frequency analysis of total length indicated that the group with 55~70 mm in total length was one year old, the 71~90 mm was two years old, and the group over 91 mm was three years old. The average number of eggs in the ovaries was estimated as 2,219 per matured female. The number of matured eggs size in ovaries was 0.64~0.98 (mean: 0.85) mm. Calulation length-weight relation of S. chankaensis tsuchigae show the value of contant a as 0.0002 and b as 2.81, and condition factor (K) was 1.06 on average. The stomach contents were Cyanophyta, Chlorophyta, Bacillariophyta, Crustaceae, Copepoda, Nematota, Actithocephala, and Ephemeroptera, Hemiptera, Diptera, and Trichoptera that belong to Aquatic insect, and dormant bud of Pectinatella that belongs to Phylactolaemata. The diet of S. chankaensis tsuchigae was omnivorous, mainly vegetable feed on attached algae (filament form), and mainly animality feeded on benthic invertebrates such as Chironomidae larvae.

• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.215-221
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• 2011

To establish an indoor-rearing system for the Large Copper butterfly, $Lycaena$ $dispar$ and the Small Copper butterfly, $Lycaena$ $phlaeas$, the effect of temperature, photoperiod and host plants on larval development was investigated. The larvae of $Lycaena$ $dispar$ fed on $Rumex$ $crispus$, whereas the larvae of $Lycaena$ $phlaeas$ ate both $Rumex$ $crispus$ and $Rumex$ $acetosa$. The duration of the larval period of $Lycaena$ $dispar$ was 13.8 days on $R.$ $crispus$ and that, of $Lycaena$ $phlaeas$ was 15.9 days and 15.2 days on $R.$ $acetosa$ and $R.$ $crispus$ respectively. Laboratory experiments show that the Large Copper larvae are able to feed on other $Rumex$ species without harming their overall survival and can utilize these alternative host plants at least as efficiently as their natural host plant. This result suggests that plant chemistry is not responsible for their lack of utilization of the alternative host plants in the wild. Host plant choice by ovipositing females was measured with the two alternative hosts. $Lycaena$ $dispar$ preferred $R.$ $crispus$ to $R.$ $acetosa$, wheareas $Lycaena$ $phlaeas$ preferred $R.$ $acetosa$ to $R.$ $crispus$. Temperature has been proposed as an important determinant of developmental rate, lifespan and mortality in invertebrates. As temperature increased, length of the developmental period gradually decreased. The developmental period of the Large Copper larvae was 11.0 days and 28.5 days at $30^{\circ}C$ and $17.5^{\circ}C$, respectively.

• The Korean Journal of Malacology
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.109-113
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• 2006

Subcellular localization of a protein containing nuclear localization signals (NLS) has been well studied in many organisms ranging from invertebrates to vertebrates. However, no systematic analysis of NLS-containing proteins available from Mollusks has been reported. Here, we describe in silico screening of NLS-containing proteins using the mollusks database that contains 22,138 amino acids. To screen putative proteins with NLS-motif, we used both predict NLS and perl script. As a result, we have found 266 proteins containing NLS sequences which are about 1.2% out of the entire proteins. On the basis of KOG (The eukaryotic orthologous groups) analysis, we can't predict the precise functions of the NLS-containing proteins. However, we found out that these proteins belong to several types of proteins such as chromatin structure and dynamics, translation, ribosomal structure, biogenesis, and signal transduction mechanism. In addition, we have analysed these sequences based on the classes of mollusks. We could not find many from the species that are the main subjects of phylogenetic studies. In contrast, we noticed that cephalopods has the highest number of NLS-containing proteins. Thus, we have constructed mollusks NLS database and added these information and data to the mollusks database by constructing web interface. Taken together, these information will be very useful for those who are or will be studying NLS-containing proteins from mollusks.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.22 no.10
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• pp.1428-1433
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• 2012

Longevity is an exciting but difficult subject to study because it is determined by complex processes that require the coordinated action of several genetic factors as well as physiological and environmental influences. Genetic approaches have been applied to animal models to identify the molecular mechanism responsible for longevity. Several experimental model organisms obtained over the last decades suggest that the complete deletion of a single gene by gene targeting has proven to be an invaluable tool for the discovery of the mechanisms underlying longevity. The first discovery of long-lived mutants came from Caenorhabditis elegans research, which identified the insulin/IGF-1 pathway as responsible for longevity in this worm. IGF-1 is a multifunctional polypeptide that has sequence similarity to insulin and is involved in normal growth and development of cells. Several factors in the IGF-1 system have since been studied by gene targeting in the control of longevity in lower species, including nematode and fruit fly. In addition, significant progress has been made using mice models to extend the lifespan by targeted mutations that interfere with growth hormone/IGF-1 and IGF-1 signaling cascades. A recent finding that IGF-1 is involved in aging in mice was achieved by using liver-specific knockout mutant mice, and this clearly demonstrated that the IGF-1 signal pathway can extend the lifespan in both invertebrates and vertebrate models. Although the underlying molecular mechanisms for the control of longevity are not fully understood, it is widely accepted that reduced IGF-1 signaling plays an important role in the control of aging and longevity. Several genes involved in the IGF-1 signaling system are reviewed in relation to longevity in genetically modified mice models.