• The Korean Journal of Ecology
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.307-321
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• 1995

Division of ecoregions having respective functions was attempted through quantitative and qualitative analysis on vegetation diversity, and heterogeneity and on soil environment of the study sites. Field research was carried out in a square of 81 ㎢ around Andongpo (126°38'E, 37°30'N), Kimpo-gun, Kyonggi provice. Conventional methods applied are as follows: classical syntaxonomy by the Zurich-Montpellier School, interpolation method to determine the degree of diversity, heterogeneity and distribution pattern of vegetation, and correlation analysis between soil properties and plant communities. 41 plant communities were identified and composed of 6 forests, 4 mantle and 31 herb communities including 6 saltmarsh plant communities. In a mesh, number of plant communities was highly correlated to the number of species. The highest number of plant community and species was 25 communities·km-2·mesh-1 and 381 species· km-2·mesh-1 ,and the highest value of vegetation heterogeneity was 28.1 species· community-1·mesh-1. Their lowest numbers were 4 communities·km-2·mesh-1. and 28 species·km-2·mesh-1. and 7 species·community-1·mesh-1, respectively. Contour map on vegetation diversity and heterogeneity enabled us to establish two regions; coastal and inland vegetation. Isoline 〔150〕,〔10〕and〔10〕and〔15〕on the species diversity, the community diversity and the vegetation heterogeneity, respectively, were regarded as ecolines in the study area. Cl- content was recognized as the most important factor from correlation analysis between soil properties. Ordination of sites indicated that the study area be divided into two edaphic types: inland and coastal habitats. It was considered that the extent of desalinization in soil played a major role in determining the species composition in the reclamed area. By matching edaphic division of habitats with division of vegetation structures, designation of ecoregion was endorsed. The approach of current study was suggested as an effective tool to implement an assessment of the vegetation dynamics by the disparity of natural environment and anthropogenic interferences.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.237-249
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• 2011

Land-use changes due to the socio-economic environment influence landscape patterns and processes, which affect habitats and biodiversity. This study considers the effects of such land-use changes, particularly on the traditional rural "Maeul" forested landscape, by analyzing landscape structure and vegetation changes. Three study areas were examined that have seen their populations decrease and age over the last few decades. Five types of plant life-forms (Raunkier life-forms) were distinguished to investigate ecosystem function. Principle component analysis was used to understand vegetation dynamics and community characteristics based on a vegetation similarity index. Ordination analysis transformed species-coverage data was introduced to clarify vegetation dynamics. Landscape indices, such as area metrics, edge metrics, and shape metrics, showed that spatial heterogeneity has increased over time in all areas. Pinus densiflora was the main land-use plant type in all study areas but decreased over time, whereas Quercus spp. increased. Over a decade, P. densiflora communities shifted to deciduous oak and plantation. These findings indicate that the impact of human activities on the Maeul landscape is twofold. While forestry activities caused heavy disturbances, the abandonment of traditional human activities has led to natural succession. Furthermore, it can be concluded that the type and intensity of these human impacts on landscape heterogeneity relate differently to vegetation succession. This reflects the cause and consequence of patch dynamics. We discuss an approach for sustainable landscape planning and management of the Maeul landscape based on traditional management.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2017

Background: Though the biomass of floral vegetation in understory plant communities in a forested ecosystem only accounts for less than 1% of the total biomass of a forest, they contain most of the floral resources of a forest. The diversity of understory honey plants determines visitation rate of pollinators such as honey bee (Apis mellifera) as they provide rich food resources. Since the flower visitation and foraging activity of pollinators lead to the provision of pollination service, it also means the enhancement of plant-pollinator relationship. Therefore, an appropriate management scheme for understory vegetation is essential in order to conserve pollinator population that is decreasing due to habitat destruction and disease infection. This research examined the diversity of understory honey plant and studied how it is related to environmental variables such as (1) canopy density, (2) horizontal heterogeneity of canopy surface height, (3) slope gradient, and (4) distance from roads. Vegetation survey data of 39 plots of mixed forests in Chuncheon, Korea, were used, and possible management practices for understory vegetation were suggested. Results: This study found that 113 species among 141 species of honey plant of the forests were classified as understory vegetation. Also, the understory honey plant diversity is significantly positively correlated with distance from the nearest road and horizontal heterogeneity of canopy surface height and negatively correlated with canopy density. Conclusions: The diversity of understory honey plant vegetation is correlated to vegetation structure and human impact. In order to enhance the diversity of understory honey plant, management of density and height of canopy is necessary. This study suggests that improved diversity of canopy cover through thinning of overstory vegetation can increase the diversity of understory honey plant species.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.259-266
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• 2019

Two main sources of data, meteorological data and land surface characteristics, are essential to effectively run a distributed rainfall-runoff model. The specification and averaging of the land surface characteristics in a suitable way is crucial to obtaining accurate runoff output. Recent advances in remote sensing techniques are often being used to derive better representations of these land surface characteristics. Due to the mismatch in scale between digital land cover maps and numerical grid sizes, issues related to upscaling or downscaling occur regularly. A specific method is typically selected to average and represent the land surface characteristics. This paper examines the amount of flooding by applying the FLO-2D routing model, where vegetation heterogeneity is manipulated using the Manning's roughness coefficient. Three different upscaling methods, arithmetic, dominant, and aggregation, were tested. To investigate further, the rainfall-runoff model with FLO-2D was facilitated in Yongdam catchment and heavy rainfall events during wet season were selected. The results show aggregation method provides better results, in terms of the amount of peak flow and the relative time taken to achieve it. These rwsults suggest that the aggregation method, which is a reasonably realistic description of area-averaged vegetation nature and characteristics, is more likely to occur in reality.

• The Korean Journal of Ecology
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.99-106
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• 2004

We developed the estimation model for the vegetation developmental processes on the severely burned slope areas after forest fire in the east coastal region, Korea. And we calculated the vegetation indices as a useful parameter for the development of land management technique in the burned area and suggested the changes of the vegetation indices after forest fire. In order to estimate the woody standing biomass in the burned area, allometric equations of the 17 woody species regenerated by sprouter were investigated. According to the our results, twenty year after forest fire need for the development to the normal forest formed by 4 stratum structure, tree, sub-tree, shrub and herb layer. The height of top vegetation layer, basal area and standing biomass of woody species show a tendency to increase linearly, and the ground vegetation coverage and litter layer show a tendency to increase logarithmically after forest fire. Among vegetation indices, Ive and Ivcd show a tendency to increase logarithmically, and Hcl and Hcdl show a tendency to increase linearly after forest fire. The spatial variation of the most vegetation factors was observed in the developmental stages less than the first 5 years which were estimated secondary disaster by soil erosion after forest fire. Among vegetation indices, Ivc and Ivcd were the good indices for the representation of the spatial heterogeneity in the earlier developmental stages, and Hcl and Hcdl were the useful indices for the long-term estimation of the vegetation development after forest fire.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.115-123
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• 2005

Quantitative understanding of spatial characteristics of the study site is a prerequisite to investigate water and carbon cycles in agricultural and forest ecosystems, particularly with complex, heterogeneous landscapes. The spatial characteristics of variables related with topography, vegetation and soil in Gwangneung forest watershed are quantified in this study. To characterize topography, information on elevation, slope and aspect extracted from DEM is analyzed. For vegetation and soil, a land-cover map classified from LANDSAT TM images is used. Four satellite images are selected to represent different seasons (30 June 1999, 4 September 2000, 23 September 2001 and 14 February 2002). As a flux index for CO₂ and water vapor, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is calculated from satellite images for three different grid sizes: MODIS grid (7km x 7km), intensive observation grid (3km x 3km), and unit grid (1km x 1km). Then, these data are analyzed to quantify the spatial scale of heterogeneity based on semivariogram analysis. As expected, the scale of heterogeneity decreases as the grid size decreases and are sensitive to seasonal changes in vegetation. For the two unit grids where the two 40 m flux towers are located, the spatial scale of heterogeneity ranges from 200 to 1,000m, which correspond well to the climatology of the computed tower flux footprint.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.59-65
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• 2010

Wetlands are a well known ecosystem which have high spatial-temporal heterogeneity of chemical characteristics. This high heterogeneity induces diverse biogeochemical processes, such as aerobic decomposition, denitrification, and plant productivity in wetlands. Understanding the dynamics of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and inorganic nitrogen in wetlands is important because DOC and inorganic nitrogen are main factors controlling biological processes in wetlands. In this study, we assessed spatial distribution of DOC and inorganic nitrogen with relation to the different hydrology and vegetation in created wetlands. Both DOC and nitrate contents were significantly higher in vegetated areas than open areas. Different water levels also affected DOC contents and their quality. Average DOC contents were $0.37mg{\cdot}g^{-1}$ in deep riparian (DR) and $0.31mg{\cdot}g^{-1}$ in shallow riparian (SR). These results appeared to be related to the interaction between carbon supply by vegetation and microbial decomposition. On the other hand, inorganic nitrogen contents were not affected by water level differences. This result indicates that presence/absence of vegetation could be a more important factor than hydrology in the spatial dynamics of inorganic nitrogen. In conclusion, we observed that vegetation and hydrology differences induced spatial distribution of carbon and nitrogen which are directly related to biogeochemical processes in wetlands.

• The Korean Journal of Ecology
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.27-34
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• 2001

We described the vegetation of a disturbed lagoon wetland in relation to water and soil environments in Kungae lagoon reclaimed 30 years ago. Water depth and soil organic matter showed a great spatial heterogeneity in Kungae wetland which was changed into a freshwater marsh by the dike construction. Detrended canonical correspondence analysis suggested that differences in vegetation structure were primarily the result of variation in water depth or microtopography and soil organic matter Various emergent vegetations were developed in the wetland: species such as Phragmites australis, Calamagrostis epigeios, Carex dispalata and Lythrum anceps in a wide area, hydrophyes such as Typha angustifolia and Scirpus tabernaemontani at the low elevation with deep water, ruderals such as Bidens frondosa and Persicaria perfoliata near upland with much soil organic matter and sand-dune vegetation such as Carex kobomugi, Diodia tens, Pinus thunbergii and Potentilla egedei var. groenlandica at the high elevation. These results suggest that development of a prototype for wetland restoration from vegetation analysis of other natural lagoons and restoration of natural water tables and hydrologic connections between the diked wetland and the sea are important in the disturbed Kungae wetland.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.435-444
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• 2011

The land cover map derived from spectral features of high resolution optical images has low spectral resolution and heterogeneity in the same land cover class. For this reason, despite the same land cover class, the land cover can be classified into various land cover classes especially in vegetation area. In order to overcome these problems, detailed vegetation classification is applied to optical satellite image and SAR(Synthetic Aperture Radar) integrated data in vegetation area which is the result of pre-classification from optical image. The pre-classification and vegetation classification were performed with MLC(Maximum Likelihood Classification) method. The hierarchical land cover classification was proposed from fusion of detailed vegetation classes and non-vegetation classes of pre-classification. We can verify the facts that the proposed method has higher accuracy than not only general SAR data and GLCM(Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix) texture integrated methods but also hierarchical GLCM integrated method. Especially the proposed method has high accuracy with respect to both vegetation and non-vegetation classification.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.113-124
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• 2006

Landscape structure, habitat types, vegetation structure and biodiversity in the Bokha stream chosen as a reference stream were investigated to get ecological information necessary for restoration of urban stream degraded by excessive artificial interference. Landscape structure showed a slight change between before and after flooding. Habitat types of nine sorts were identified based on ecological information obtained from field survey such as micro-topography, hydrological characteristics, disturbance regime, and so on. Each habitat holds specific organisms to each site. Consequently, the number of plant communities, and species of benthos and fish increased as the kinds of habitat type increase. Ordination of habitat types based on vegetation, benthos, and fish data reorganized them into three groups of pool types of two kinds depending on whether they are connected to the water course or not and riffle one. Vegetation showed different stratification and species composition depending on topographical position in relation to disturbance cycle. Based on the results from this study, relationship between environmental heterogeneity and biodiversity was discussed and a restoration plan was suggested in a viewpoint of vegetation.