• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.52 no.5
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• pp.534-538
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• 2019

The distribution and characteristics of spawning beds of the Pacific herring Clupea pallasii, were observed by scuba diving in Jinhae Bay, Korea, with a focus on marine vegetation as adhesive substrates and egg density during the spawning season. In 2017, the fertilized eggs of C. pallasii were mainly found attached to the leaves of algae species Carpopeltis cornea, Gracilaria textorii, and Acrosrium polyneurum at the rocky shore in Wonpo-dong and Jeodo. The mean density of fertilized eggs in C. pallasii spawning beds was $153,776eggs/m^2$ off Wonpo-dong and $856,430eggs/m^2$ off Jeodo, giving an estimated total of $5.345{\times}10^9$ eggs in Wonpo-dong and $3.3074{\times}10^{10}$ eggs in Jeodo. We examined spawning beds with an area of $38,619m^2$ off Wonpo-dong and $34,760m^2$ off Jeodo. The choice of spawning bed may be affected by the composition of marine vegetation, such as the algal diversity of rocky shore environments, which could affect adhesive substrates and egg density during the spawning season. The results of the present study suggest that the spawning season of C. pallasii in Jinhae Bay is in January to mid-February.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.329-339
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• 2021

The monthly variation in species composition of fishes in the Gujora and Mangchi coastal waters in Geoje, Korea, was investigated between June 2018 and May 2019 through monthly fish collections using a gill net. A total of 46 species, numbering 410 individuals weighing a total of 96,645.0 g, were collected during the study period. The dominant species in terms of numbers were Chelidonichthys spinosus, Stephanolepis cirrhifer, Ditrema temmincki, Sillago japonica, Sebastes inermis, and Paraplagusia japonica. The number and biomass of fishes peaked in July. The peak in species diversity indices occurred in September. The cluster analysis revealed that there were four groups of fishes depending on the season. In addition, subtropical fishes were recorded in the study area, indicating the gradual subtropicalization of the coast of Geoje. Furthermore, the need to understand the changes in marine ecosystems owing to subtropicalization through continuous monitoring is emphasized.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.157-166
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• 2021

The probiotic market is constantly continuing to grow, concomitantly with a widening in the range and diversity of probiotic products. Probiotics are defined as live microorganisms that provide a benefit to the host when consumed at a proper dose; the viability of a probiotic is therefore of crucial importance for its efficacy. Many products undergo lyophilization for maintaining their shelf-life. Unfortunately, this procedure may damage the integrity of the cells due to stress conditions during both the freezing and (vacuum-) drying process, thereby impacting their functionality. We propose a lysine-based mixture for rehydration of freeze-dried probiotics for improving their viability during in vitro simulated gastric and duodenum stress conditions. Measurement of the zeta potential served as an indicator of cell integrity and efficacy of this mixture, while functionality was estimated by adhesion to a human enterocyte-like Caco-2 cell-line. The freeze-dried bacteria exhibited a significantly different zeta potential compared to fresh cultures; however, this condition could be restored by rehydration with the lysine mixture. Recovery of the surface charge was found to influence adhesion ability to the Caco-2 cell-line. The optimum lysine concentration of the formulation, designated "Zeta-bio", was found to be 0.03 M for improving the viability of Lactiplantibacillus plantarum Lp-115 by up to 13.86% and a 7-strain mixture (400B) to 41.99% compared to the control rehydrated with distilled water. In addition, the lysine Zeta-bio formulation notably increased the adherence ability of lyophilized Lp-115 to the Caco-2 cell-line after subjected to the in vitro stress conditions of the simulated gastrointestinal tract passage.

• Journal of Species Research
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.133-142
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• 2022

In 2020, 24 bacterial strains were isolated from algae, kudzu leaf, mud, pine cone, seashore sand, sea water, soil, tidal flat, and wetland from the Republic of Korea. Isolated bacterial strains were identified based on 16S rRNA gene sequences, and those exhibiting at least 98.7% sequence similarity with known bacterial species, but not reported in Korea, were highlighted as unrecorded species. These isolates were allocated to the phyla Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria as unrecorded species in Korea. The four Bacteroidetes strains were classified into the families Chitinophagaceae, Flavobacteriaceae, and Sphingobacteriaceae (of the orders Chitinophagales, Flavobacteriales, and Sphingobacteriales, respectively). The 20 Proteobacteria strains belonged to the Aeromonadaceae, Marinobacter, Microbulbiferaceae, Enterobacteriaceae, Erwiniaceae, Morganellaceae, Yersiniaceae, Lysobacteraceae, Halomonadaceae, Moraxellaceae, Pseudomonadaceae, Steroidobacteraceae, Xanthomonadaceae, and Myxococcaceae (of the orders Aeromonadales, Alteromonadales, Cellvibrionales, Enterobacterales, Lysobacterales, Oceanospirillales, Pseudomonadales, Steroidobacter, Xanthomonadales, and Myxococcales). This study focused on the description of 24 unreported bacterial species in Korea in the phyla Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria belonging to six classes.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.68 no.3
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• pp.216-223
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• 2023

This study aimed to identify and compare the characteristics of Elymus humidus on common wheat (Triticum aestivum L. cv. Chinse Spring, CS). The seed length, width, height, and weight of E. humidus were smaller than those of the CS. In particular, the germination rate of E. humidus was substantially lower than that of CS. In the anatomical dissection of the leaf, E. humidus showed a considerably different xylem diameter of the main vascular bundle in the main vein; however, there was no difference in the phloem of the main vascular bundle compared with the xylem and phloem of the main vascular bundle in the main vein of CS, although E. humidus showed a leaf structure similar to that of CS. In addition, E. humidus had a thinner epidermis than that of CS. Regarding stomatal traits, E. humidus showed a graminoid stomata type similar to that of CS. On the adaxial and abaxial sides, the density, length, and width of the stomata in E. humidus were smaller than those in CS, whereas the distance between stomata in E. humidus was greater than that in CS. The chromosomes of E. humidus were classified as long and short based on their respective lengths. Long chromosomes were classified based on the ratio of the long arm to the short arm e.g., 1:1 or 2:1. Short chromosomes showed the same trend and some short chromosomes were microsatellites. To evaluate genetic diversity, 38 barley EST markers with polymorphisms between E. humidus and CS were selected from 236 barley EST markers.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.434-441
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• 2023

Determining the size or area of a plant's leaves is an important factor in predicting plant growth and improving the productivity of indoor farms. In this study, we developed a convolutional neural network (CNN)-based model to accurately predict the length and width of lettuce leaves using photographs of the leaves. A callback function was applied to overcome data limitations and overfitting problems, and K-fold cross-validation was used to improve the generalization ability of the model. In addition, ImageDataGenerator function was used to increase the diversity of training data through data augmentation. To compare model performance, we evaluated pre-trained models such as VGG16, Resnet152, and NASNetMobile. As a result, NASNetMobile showed the highest performance, especially in width prediction, with an R_squared value of 0.9436, and RMSE of 0.5659. In length prediction, the R_squared value was 0.9537, and RMSE of 0.8713. The optimized model adopted the NASNetMobile architecture, the RMSprop optimization tool, the MSE loss functions, and the ELU activation functions. The training time of the model averaged 73 minutes per Epoch, and it took the model an average of 0.29 seconds to process a single lettuce leaf photo. In this study, we developed a CNN-based model to predict the leaf length and leaf width of plants in indoor farms, which is expected to enable rapid and accurate assessment of plant growth status by simply taking images. It is also expected to contribute to increasing the productivity and resource efficiency of farms by taking appropriate agricultural measures such as adjusting nutrient solution in real time.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.268-273
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• 2019

The intestinal microbiomes vary according to the factors such environment, age and diet. The purpose of this study was to compare the gut microbial diversity between Korean infants receiving breast-fed milk and formula-fed milk. We analyzed microbial communities in stool samples collected from 80 Korean infants using next generation sequencing. Phylum level analysis revealed that microbial communities in both breast-fed infants group (BIG) was dominated by Actinobacteria ($74.22{\pm}3.48%$). Interestingly, the phylum Actinobacteria was dominant in formula-fed infants group A (FIG-A) at $73.46{\pm}4.12%$, but the proportions of phylum Actinobacteria were lower in formulafed infants group B and C (FIG-B and FIG-C) at $66.52{\pm}5.80%$ and $68.88{\pm}4.33%$. The most abundant genus in the BIG, FIG-A, FIG-B, and FIG-C was Bifidobacterium, comprising $73.09{\pm}2.31%$, $72.25{\pm}4.93%$, $63.81{\pm}6.05%$, and $67.42{\pm}5.36%$ of the total bacteria. Furthermore, the dominant bifidobacterial species detected in BIG and FIG-A was Bifidobacterium longum at $68.77{\pm}6.07%$ and $66.85{\pm}4.99%$ of the total bacteria. In contrast, the proportions of B. longum of FIG-B and FIG-C were $58.94{\pm}6.20%$ and $61.86{\pm}5.31%$ of the total bacteria. FIG-A showed a community similar to BIG, which may be due to the inclusion of galactooligosaccharide, galactosyllactose, synergy-oligosaccharide, bifidooligo and improvement material of gut microbiota contained in formula-milk. We conclude that 5-Bifidus factor contained in milk powder promotes the growth of Bifidobacterium genus in the intestines.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.150-164
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• 2022

The objective of this study is to analyze the biodiversity changes and characteristics of the benthic macroinvertebrate community in the Nakdong River with eight weirs, which was constructed as one of the Four Major River Restoration Projects from May to October 2020. The study also includes the analysis of changes in the major groups of benthic macroinvertebrates for about ten years, from 2010 to 2020. The surveys collected 97 species of benthic macroinvertebrates belonging to 83 genera, 52 families, 18 orders, five classes, three phyla, and 128.1 individuals/m². Chironomidae sp. and Tubificidae spp., which are pollutant indicators, dominated throughout the sections. The community analysis result shows the average dominant index and the diversity index of 0.62±0.20 and 1.87±0.63, respectively, and indicated the most stability of the freshwater ecosystem in the upper stream of the Nakdong River. The survey showed dominance by Chironomidae sp. at the center of the Nakdong River weir and the most unstable community in Chilgok and Gangjeong Goryeong weirs. The results of the community stability analysis showed a high distribution of the characteristic group I with high resilience and resistance and small distribution of characteristic group III with low resistance and resilience, indicating a very unstable condition of communities in the Nakdong River weir section. Predators were relatively abundant among the functional feeding groups (FFGs), whereas shredders, gathering-collectors, and filtering-collectors were relatively lower. Among the habitat orientation groups (HOGs), burrowers and climbers were dominant, indicating a wide distribution of groups in ecosystems with low dissolved oxygen. An endangered species level II of Macromia daimoji was found in Sangju and Nakdan weirs. The analysis results for 10 years from 2010 showed that the number of species and populations increased immediately after the dam construction but plummeted in 2016 and are now stabilizing. Chironomidae spp. has been dominant in all sections over the past 10 years, and they are currently maintained at a rate of about 50%. The EPT groups have decreased significantly since 2011, and the Plecoptera and Trichoptera of the group have not yet been restored. The population of Tubificidae spp. showed an increase after construction was completed in 2012 and drastically increased in 2015 and 2020. The species of Cristaria plicata, designated as endangered species level I, has not been observed since 2011 in Hapcheon Changnyeong weir. Moreover, Macromia daimoji was rarely observed in seven weirs until 2015, and it has been confirmed that the current distribution habitat has decreased rapidly.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.313-321
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• 2012

To analyze the bird communities by the land use type, we surveyed 43 plots in Siheung City, Korea from Mar. 2009 to Feb. 2010 and classified the community by TWINSPAN and DCA. Classification result by TWINSPAN was classified into 4 communities. In the first division, waterbirds, such as spot-billed duck(Anas poecilorhyncha) and great egret(Egretta alba) operated as the differential species. In the second and third division, little grebe(Tachybaptus ruficollis) and eurasian sparrow(Passer montanus) were operated as the differential species. The relationship between land use types and classified bird communities, all plots of community I were located in the forest. Community II plots were contained all urban and several semi-natural land use types. Community III contains stream and rice paddy. Plots in the reservoir were classified community IV. The stream and rice paddy were classified into different communities, which were colsely related with the size of wetland paddy. Community III had the highest species diversity index and community II had lowest. Community III also had the highest maximum species diversity index and evenness index. The result of this study, small stream and small rice paddy located within the city have insignificant characteristics as the habitat for birds. Management size of semi-natural land use for wildbird habitat in the urban area should be considered for showing their habitat characteristics. If the classification of biotope type based on the scale of rice paddy and urban park and the type of landuse type in the riverside then we should be consider the standard of minium area.

• The Korean Journal of Mycology
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2014

Twelve Universal fungal PCR fingerprint (UFPF) primers that were modified from Universal rice primer (URP) were used to assess genetic diversity of 64 Agaricus strains including 45 A. bisporus strains and other 19 strains of other Agaricus spp. Eight primers, UFPF1, UFPF2, UFPF3, UFPF7, UFPF9, UFPF10, UFPF11, and UFPF12 produced PCR polymorphic bands within and between the Agaricus species. Primer UFPF7 produced specific PCR polymorphic bands that are distinct Korean strain from different strains. Ninety five PCR polymorphic bands were inputted for UPGMA cluster analysis. Forty five strains of A. bisporus are genetically clustered into 8 groups, showing coefficient similarity from 0.75 to 0.9 among them. The varieties, Saea, Saedo, Saejeong and Saeyeon that have recently been developed in Korea were involved in the same group with close genetic relationship of coefficient similarity over 0.96, whereas, other Korean strains were genetically related to A. bisporus strains that were introduced from USA, Eroupe and Chinese.