• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.514-521
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• 2012

In this paper, three general academic issues in Korean biogeographical studies were comprehensively reviewed: 1) relationship between environmental factors and plant distribution, 2) past vegetation and climate 3) interaction between humans and environment. Biogeography in Korea is poorly developed field and has been generally ignored by geographers in Korea. The future for biogeography in Korea however seems promising and Korean biogeographers have a great opportunity to develop their field. To attract more prospective graduate students into biogeography and train them would be very important for the gradual and persistent development of geographical biogeography in Korea.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.143-155
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• 2016

Present work aims to establish the countermeasure for the better maintenance and preservation of insular floristic diversity at the South Sea of Jeollanamdo Province, ROK, where unique ecosystems are under threat due to climate change, anthropogenic disturbance and habitat destruction. Numerous flora reports from 15 inhabited islands and 60 uninhabited islands as well as field survey data are collated for the compilation of floristic data base and island biogeographical analysis. Out of the 1,940 vascular plant species from 180 families occurring in studies areas, 30.1 percentage or 584 plant species are physiognomically belonging to arboreal plants. Average number of species at individual island is numbered about 222 species, but it varies from about 591 species at the inhabited islands to 129 species at the uninhabited islands. Only 0.15 percentage of species with high proportion above 0.9 in its relative occurrence rate occurs at 68 islands and it includes three species, such as Pinus thunbergii, Eurya japonica and Pteridium aquilinum var. latiusculum. However, about 68 percentage of plant species occurring in study area is confined their distribution to less than seven islands. Presence of high proportion of notable plants in small islands, i.e., 10 critically endangered species compared with 5.5 species in average, 9 endangered species (average 4.2 spp.) at Sonjookdo, and 7 critically endangered species, 8 endangered species at Sokomundo may due to existence of diverse geological and topographical environmental diversity as well as lower human population density and remoteness from the mainland. Since island is small in size and geographically isolated, minor environmental and ecological burdens can cause the critical damages to the diversity of flora and vegetation, urgent island biogeographical research is needed for the scientific conservation and management of island biodiversity.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.191-201
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• 2019

Macroecologists and biogeographers continue to predict the distribution of species across space based on the relationship between biotic processes and environmental variables. This approach uses data related to, for example, species abundance or presence/absence, climate, geomorphology, and soils. Researchers have acknowledged in their statistical analyses the importance of accounting for the effects of spatial autocorrelation (SAC), which indicates a degree of dependence between pairs of nearby observations. It has been agreed that residual spatial autocorrelation (rSAC) can have a substantial impact on modeling processes and inferences. However, more attention should be paid to the sources of rSAC and the degree to which rSAC becomes problematic. Here, we review previous studies to identify diverse factors that potentially induce the presence of rSAC in macroecological and biogeographical models. Furthermore, an emphasis is put on the quantification of rSAC by seeking to unveil the magnitude to which the presence of SAC in model residuals becomes detrimental to the modeling process. It turned out that five categories of factors can drive the presence of SAC in model residuals: ecological data and processes, scale and distance, missing variables, sampling design, and assumptions and methodological approaches. Additionally, we noted that more explicit and elaborated discussion of rSAC should be presented in species distribution modeling. Future investigations involving the quantification of rSAC are recommended in order to understand when rSAC can have an adverse effect on the modeling process.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.413-425
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• 2014

In order to shed some light on the historical change of biodiversity concepts, this paper reviews the science and technology studies (STS) literature on the history of biological research on human genetic diversity. By doing that, I show how the notion of genetic diversity in the human population - from "race" to "population" to "biogeographical ancestry" - has changed with methodologies and techniques over the last hundred years. In the meantime, I point out contexts and situations, despite conceptual and methodological developments, that show that current human genetic diversity research is slipping into the past mistakes of scientific racism. This article offers biodiversity researchers an opportunity to consider their own scientific practices on classifying species more reflectively.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.117-129
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• 2021

In this review, we aimed to synthesize the current knowledge on the observed and projected effects of climate change on the ecosystems of Korea (i.e., the Republic of Korea (ROK) or South Korea), as well as the main causes of vulnerability and options for adaptation in these ecosystems based on a range of ecological and biogeographical data. To this end, we compiled a set of peer-reviewed papers published since 2014. We found that publication of climate-related studies on plants has decreased in the field of plant phenology and physiology, whereas such publication has rapidly increased in plant and animal community ecology, reflecting the range shifts and abundance change that are occurring under climate change. Plant phenology studies showed that climate change has increased growing seasons by advancing the timing of flowering and budburst while delaying the timing of leafing out. Community ecology studies indicated that the future ranges of cold-adapted plants and animals could shrink or shift toward northern and high-elevation areas, whereas the ranges of warm-adapted organisms could expand and/or shift toward the areas that the aforementioned cold-adapted biota previously occupied. This review provides useful information and new insights that will improve understanding of climate change effects on the ecosystems of Korea. Moreover, it will serve as a reference for policy-makers seeking to establish future sectoral adaptation options for protection against climate change.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.75-83
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• 2016

Background: In order to evaluate the effect of pH, known as a critical factor for shaping the biogeographical microbial patterns in the studies by others, on the bacterial diversity, we selected two sites in a similar geographical location (site 1; north latitude 35.3, longitude 127.8, site 2; north latitude 35.2, longitude 129.2) and compared their soil bacterial diversity between them. The mountain soil at site 1 (Jiri National Park) represented naturally acidic but almost pollution free (pH 5.2) and that at site 2 was neutral but exposed to the pollutants due to the suburban location of a big city (pH 7.7). Methods: Metagenomic DNAs from soil bacteria were extracted and amplified by PCR with 27F/518R primers and pyrosequenced using Roche 454 GS FLX Titanium. Results: Bacterial phyla retrieved from the soil at site 1 were more diverse than those at site 2, and their bacterial compositions were quite different: Almost half of the phyla at site 1 were Proteobacteria (49 %), and the remaining phyla were attributed to 10 other phyla. By contrast, in the soil at site 2, four main phyla (Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria, and Cyanobacteria) composed 94 %; the remainder was attributed to two other phyla. Furthermore, when bacterial composition was examined on the order level, only two Burkholderiales and Rhizobiales were found at both sites. So depending on pH, the bacterial community in soil at site 1 differed from that at site 2, and although the acidic soil of site 1 represented a non-optimal pH for bacterial growth, the bacterial diversity, evenness, and richness at this site were higher than those found in the neutral pH soil at site 2. Conclusions: These results and the indices regarding diversity, richness, and evenness examined in this study indicate that pH alone might not play a main role for bacterial diversity in soil.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.441-449
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• 2015

This study was conducted to screen the characteristics of external and cranial characters of Crocidura shantungensis collected from Korean Peninsula, Ulleung Island and Jeju Island. There were significant differences in head-body length (HBL), tail length (TL), ear length (EL), and hind foot length (HFL) in males and HBL, TL, and HFL in females among three populations (p<0.05). The HBL and TL in the Jeju Island population were larger (8.0 mm and 4.0 mm in lengths, respectively) than those of the Korean Peninsula population. Based on skull analysis, a total of thirteen traits showed significant differences among the three populations (p<0.05). The condylo-insicive length (CIL), maximum width of brain case (MWB), mandibular length (ML), and mandibular height (MH) in the Jeju Island population were significantly larger than those of Korean Peninsula population (p<0.05). Principle component analysis (PCA) showed that two principle components (PC) identified from the PCA affected on the body size and width of the skull, respectively. Discriminant analysis revealed that these populations could be discriminated through skull traits. These findings concluded that the Jeju Island population was greater in the size than the Korean Peninsula, suggesting that the Jeju Island shrews have successfully adapted to the island environments and they had morphologically differentiated during glacial period after natural immigration into that Island. Thus, this study supports the 'Island Rule', showing that the population is well adapted to the island environments. This may provide important information for biogeographical and ecological studies on insular animals.