• The Korean Journal of Ecology
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.759-770
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• 1998

biotic indices scoring with the benthic macroinvertebrates were assessed as pollution monitoring tools in the north branch of the Han River system, Korea. We investigated the temporal variability of water quality at unpolluted, moderately polluted and heavily polluted sites using several biotic indices and assessed appropriate biological monitoring indices for lotic systems in Korea. The following biotic and chemical indices were employed in order to compare their applicability to the lotic systems : Trent Biotic Index (TBI), Chandler's Biotic Index-Average Score per Taxon (CBI-ASPT), Modified Biological Monitoring Working Party Score System-Average Score per Taxon (BMWP-ASPT), Hilsenhoff's biotic Index (BI) and Family-level Biotic Index (FBI) models for biotic analyses and National Sanitation foundation's Water Quality Index (NSFWQI) and comprehensive Chemical Pollution Index (Pb/n) for chemical analyses of water quality. Index and score values were compared with each other and with 24 water chemistry parameters. All biotic indices were significantly auto-correlated (p<0.001) and BI and FBI/ROK among them were highly correlated (r=0.84). BI and BMWP-ASPT models were also highly correlated with NSFWQI, while TBI values showed high correlation with the Pb/n. The BI and BMWP-ASPT were highly correlated with the most water chemistry parameters. We conclude that the BI model, which includes indicator species and abundance of taxa, is best suited for the bioassessment of lotic systems in Korea. For rapid field-based assessments, FBI/ROK and BMWP-ASPT models are also appropriate.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.760-768
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• 2011

Jinwi Stream is considerably polluted. The urban development in a Jinwi Stream basin can make state of aquatic ecosystem worse. However, researches for aquatic ecosystems in Jinwi Stream are insufficient. In this study, biotic indices of periphytic diatoms (DAIpo and TDI), benthic macroinvertebrates (EPT, KSI and ESB) and fish (IBI) were compared with the annual water quality data. Benthic macroinvertebrates indices showed highly significant correlations with concentrations of organic materials and nutrients, while DAIpo, TDI and IBI showed low correlations with them. In particular, ESB can be considered as an useful indicator that reflects the degree of diversity and abundance of biotic community as well as water quality. In polluted and disturbed streams as Jinwi Stream, DAIpo, TDI and IBI appeared to be not available for evaluating and discriminating the water quality, although they have been known as good indices in general streams.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.339-348
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• 2007

In this work, we compared the characteristics of three benthic biotic indices (BPI, AMBI, BIBI) which indicates the health condition of benthic communities in Masan Bay, Korea where anthropogenic impacts have been concentrated. Also we evaluated the usefulness of these benthic indices and some problems if they were applied to the Korean coastal waters. For this we used the macrozoobenthos data collected using van Veen grab ($0.1\;m^2$) at 21 sites in Masan Bay in February and August 2004. Based on the BPI values, two stations in the inner bay were found in a very hard polluted condition and three stations in the middle bay were also in a highly polluted condition. Only one station located in the bay mouth was in a normal condition. The inner bay stations showed very high AMBI values (${\geq}5.0$), indicating a highly polluted condition. The bay mouth station was assessed in a moderately polluted condition. The overall BIBI values in Masan Bay were in the range between 1.0 and 3.0. The inner bay stations showed low BIBI values (${\leq}2.0$) in the severely degraded condition. The bay mouth station with high BIBI value over 3.0 was assessed as a normal condition. All three benthos indices showed that macrozoobenthic communities in the inner bay were in a seriously polluted condition all year round, and macrobenthic faunas in the bay mouth seemed in a bad healthy condition (slightly polluted) based on AMBI during summer season. These three benthic biotic indices showed the similar assessment result, and thus we consider that each of them is a useful tool for the assessment of coastal benthic ecosystems under the organic enrichment in sediment.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.544-550
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• 2008

This study conducted a survey on the ecosystem of Wonju stream from May until November in 2004 and made an health assessment of Wonju stream using family biotic indices(FBI) and physical habitat assessment(PHA) of the aquatic insects. Through this survey, aquatic insects covering 8 orders, 37 families, 62 genuses, and 92 species were observed at 9 stations along Wonju stream. In terms of family biotic indices, it was confirmed that station 1,2 and 3 were maintaining the healthiest stream ecosystem with the value ranging from 4.55 to 4.82. In addition, station 2 was found to have the best habitat environment in the correlation between physical habitat assessment and family biotic indices with its value of 100 and 4.82, respectively. However, station 7 and 9 showed the lowest habitat environment with the value of 45, 6.17 and 45, 6.97, respectively. posing the need for improvement in PHA; further, station 7 and 9 showed inverted correlationship between PHA and FBI.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2012

The Jinwi stream, which is located in the Gyeonggi Province, shows a large variation in water quality from the upper stream to downstream. Therefore the Jinwi stream is suitable for assessing changes to the benthic macroinvertebrate community structure according to saprobity. This study was conducted to find out the applicability of biotic indices for water quality pollution through an analysis of the correlation between water quality and benthic macroinvertebrate indices for the Jinwi stream. Along with the pollution of water, the species composition of Ephemeroptera decreased, while that of Annelida increased. The ecological score for the benthic macroinvertebrate community (ESB) showed more significant correlations than any other biotic index (H', DI, R1, J, EPT and KSI) with the water quality items.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.325-336
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• 2017

The ecosystem in the Gwangju Stream has taken a wide range of disturbance such as the discharging water of sewage treatment plant, the lake water and the river water from different water system over the past decade. This study was figured out some significant influence factors by analyzing the relationship between biotic and abiotic factors in the urban stream. Abiotic components included 15 water quality variables which were measured in five sampling sites along the stream from October 2014 to July 2015, whereas the benthic macroinvertebrates found in those sites were used to estimate various biotic indices representing the ecological status of the community. The results of correlation analyses indicated that abiotic factors by human activities affected on the inhabitation of benthic macroinvertebrates more than biotic factors. The results of cluster analyses and ANOVA tests also showed that biotic and abiotic characteristics were clearly different in season. The main influence factors of cluster analysis by sites were $NH_3-N$, EPT(I) and DO. It was considered that more various statistical analyses would be necessary to find some different relationships and influence factors between biotic and abiotic variables in the urban stream.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.908-926
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• 2014

This study investigated the community structure and health assessment of macrobenthic assemblages in Wonmun Bay, in the southern coast of Korea. The total number of species and mean density were 170 species and $1,269\;indivuduals/m^2$, respectively. The major dominant species were the bivalve Theora fragilis ($230{\pm}446\;indivuduals/m^2$) and the polychaetes Lumbrineris longifolia ($180{\pm}339\;indivuduals/m^2$), Sigambra tentaculata ($124{\pm}153\;indivuduals/m^2$), Paraprionospio patiens ($104{\pm}293\;indivuduals/m^2$) and Capitella capitata ($82{\pm}223\;indivuduals/m^2$). Community statistics [cluster analysis and nonmetric multidimentional scaling (NMDS) ordination] revealed that the macrobenthic community structure in the study area was classified into three station groups for both seasons. Several biotic indices based on macrobenthic communities have been developed to assess the ecological quality of coastal ecosystems. In this study, the ecological status was assessed by four biotic indices Shannon's H', the AZTI Marine Biotic Index (AMBI), multivariate-AMBI (M-AMBI) and the Ecological Conservation Index (ECI). The ecological statuses of the macrobenthic communities in Wonmun Bay were poorer in the summer than in the spring. The results of the present study indicate that three biotic indices ( i.e.; Shannon's H', M-AMBI and ECI ) were better correlated with bottom dissolved oxygen than the AMBI in Wonmun Bay.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.36 no.1 s.102
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• pp.29-37
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• 2003

Benthic macro-invertebrates were seasonally collected in the Onchen Stream in Pusan, from July 2001 to March 2002. Generally 4 phylum 5 class 10 order 19 family 23 species were observed in the study sites. Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and various species appeared in headwater stream while Oligochaeta and Chironomidae were dominated in downstream sites. Community abundance patterns, especially the dominant taxa, Oligochaeta and Chironomidae, appeared to be different depending upon the sampling months. Oligochaeta was usually observed in July, December and March while Chironomidae was appeared in September. The biological indices, TBI(Trent Biotic Index), BS (Biotic Score), BMWP (Biological Monitoring Working Party)were calculated with the appeared communities of the sampling sites through the survey months. TBI showed 1 to 8, BMWP was 1 to 93 and CBI appeared 9 to 387 in the different sites. The biological indices decreased from headstream to downstream sites, We implemented the unsupervised Kohonen network for patterning of community abundance of the sampling sites. The patterning map by the Kohonen network was well represented community abundance of the sampling sites. Also, we conducted RTRN (Real Time Recurrent Neural Network) for predicting of the biological indices in the different sites. The results appeared that the predicting values by RTRN were well matched field data (correlation coefficient of TBI, BMWP and CBI were 0.957, 0.979 and 0.967, respectively).

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.825-831
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• 2013

The Suwon stream which consists of a mountainous reach, an artificial reservoir and an urban reach provides benthic macroinvertebrates with various habitats. This study was conducted to find out the influence of reservoir sluice control and water quality on benthic macroinvertebrates community in the Suwon stream from June to August, 2011. As a result, substrate composition showed little difference between the upper site (S2) and the lower site of the reservoir (S3). At site S3, water velocity was fastest, and water temperature was lowest due to the intermediate depth discharge of the reservoir. Cheumatopsyche brevilineata which prefer fast water velocity was dominant at site S3. Some biotic indices (H', J, and R) of site S3 decreased significantly whereas Benthic Macroinvertebrate Index (BMI) showed little difference between site S2 and site S3. EPT showed a negative correlation with water temperature. The sluice control of the reservoir leaded variations of water velocity and temperature, and seemed to make the state of aquatic ecosystem worse.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.303-316
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• 2009

Benthic macroinvertebrate communities collected from eight different streams in South Korea were analyzed to compare community and biological indices across different levels of water pollution. The Self-Organizing Map (SOM) was utilized to provide overview on association of the proposed indices. The sample sites were accordingly clustered according to the gradient of pollution on the SOM. While the general trends of the indices were commonly observable according to different levels of pollution, the detailed differences among the indices were also illustrated on the SOM. The conventional diversity and evenness indices tended to be high even though the water quality state was poor representing relatively weak gradient at polluted sites, while the index presenting the saprobic degree such as family biotic index showed the stronger gradient at the polluted area and was robust to present the gradient. Our results also confirmed the general characterization of two indices: The Shannon index is more strengthened by the number of species occurring at the sample sites, while the Simpson index is more influenced by the degree of evenness among the species. The patterning based on the SOM was efficient in comparatively characterizing the proposed indices to present ecological states and water quality.