• Asian Journal of Atmospheric Environment
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.65-78
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• 2011

Ozone ($O_3$) is a main component of photochemical oxidants, and a phytotoxic anthropogenic air pollutant. In North America and Europe, the current concentration of $O_3$ has been shown to have significant adverse effects on vegetation. In this review, we summarize the experimental studies on the effects of $O_3$ on the growth and photosynthetic activity of Japanese forest tree species to understand the present knowledge and provide sound basis for future research toward the assessment of $O_3$ impacts on Japanese forest ecosystem. Since the 1990s, several Japanese researchers have conducted the experimental studies on the effects of ambient levels of $O_3$ on growth and physiological functions such as net photosynthesis of Japanese forest tree species. Although the sensitivity to $O_3$ of whole-plant growth is quite different among the species, it was suggested that the current ambient levels of $O_3$ in Japan are high enough to adversely affect growth and photosynthetic activity of Japanese forest tree species classified into high $O_3$ sensitivity group such as Japanese beech. The N load to soil has been shown to reduce the sensitivity to $O_3$ of Japanese larch and increase that of Japanese beech. To establish the critical level of $O_3$ for protecting Japanese forest tree species, therefore, it is necessary to take into account the N deposition from the atmosphere. There is little information on the combined effects of $O_3$ and other environmental factors such as elevated $CO_2$ and drought on growth and physiological functions of Japanese forest tree species. Therefore, it is necessary to promote the experimental study and accumulate the information on the combined effects of $O_3$ and any other abiotic environmental factors on Japanese forest tree species.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.98 no.2
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• pp.170-177
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• 2009

There are remarkable differences in growth and morphological characters of roots between mountain and field cultivated Panax ginseng. Growth of root in mountain cultivated ginseng was much slower than that of field cultivated ginseng. However, the factor affecting the retarded growth in mountain ginseng was not known. Soil analysis revealed that phosphorus (P) content of mountain soil was exceptionally low at least ten-fold lower compared to that of field soil. Thus, we suggest that low availability of P in mountain soil may be one of the limiting factors for growth of ginseng in mountain soil environment. We had monitored the growth of ginseng plants after one and three years of phosphate fertilizer application. Three kinds of phosphate fertilizers: fused magnesium phosphate, fused superphosphate, and single superphosphate were applied to mountain soil. Application of phosphate fertilizers increased the fresh-, dry weight, and diameter of ginseng roots and resulted in increased P accumulation in roots. These results demonstrate that slow growth of ginseng in mountain soil environment might be attributed to the low P content in mountain soil. Thus, analysis of P amount in mountain soil will be a good indicator for the selection of suitable site the ginseng cultivation in forest.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.153-160
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• 2013

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of ecological factors affecting Pinus densiflora forest distribution associated with climate change in the future. Ecological niche is used as a method to quantify the position occupied in biological communities, space, influence and all ecological factors. Ecological niche breadth was analyzed on meteorological and growth factors of P. densiflora. Nine sites (i.e., Gangneung, Jeongseon, Pyeongchang, Hamyang, Bonghwa, Yeongyang, Uljin, Uiseong and Boseong) were selected to set $20m{\times}20m$ quadrat from September to October 2010. The height, DBH, clearlength, crown width and basal area were measured at each quadrat and used as growth factors. In addition, the measured values from the closest weather stations of each survey area of the maximum, mean and minimum temperature, humidity and precipitation were used as meteorological factors. The ecological niche breadth of the five meteorological factors except humidity was low. It is considered that precipitation could effect on the distribution of P. densiflora forest. In particular, maximum temperature showed low ecological niche breadth less than 0.4 in most of the survey areas. However, the ecological niche breadth of the five growth factors was high in all survey areas.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.32-40
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• 2006

This study's objects are to suggest effective forest community-level management measures by identifying the vulnerable forest vegetation communities types to climate change through a comparative analysis with present forest communities identified and delineated in the Actual Vegetation Map. The methods of this study are to classify the climatic life zones based on the correlative climate-vegetation relationship for each forest vegetation community, the Holdridge Bio-Climate Model was employed. This study confirms relationship between forest vegetation and environmental factors using Pearson's correlation coefficient analysis. Then, the future distribution of forest vegetation are predicted derived factors and present distribution of vegetation by utilizing the multinomial logit model. The vulnerability of forest to climate change was evaluated by identifying the forest community shifts slower than the average velocity of forest moving (VFM) for woody plants, which is assumed to be 0.25 kilometers per year. The major findings in this study are as follows : First, the result of correlative analysis shows that summer precipitation, mean temperature of the coldest month, elevation, soil organic matter contents, and soil acidity (pH) are highly influencing factors to the distribution of forest vegetation. Secondly, the result of the vulnerability assessment employing the assumed velocity of forest moving for woody plants (0.25kmjyear) shows that 54.82% of the forest turned out to be vulnerable to climate change. The sub-alpine vegetations in regions around Mount Jiri and Mount Seorak are predicted to shift the dominance toward Quercus mongolica and Pinus densiflora communities. In the identified vulnerable areas centering the southern and eastern coastal regions, about 8.27% of the Pinus densiflora communities is likely to shift to sub-tropical forest communities, and 3.38% of the Quercus mongolica communities is likely to shift toward Quercus acutissima communities. In the vulnerable areas scattered throughout the country, about 8.84% of the Quercus mongolica communities is likely to shift toward Pinus densiflora communities due to the effects of climate change. The study findings concluded that challenges associated with predicting the future climate using RCM and the assessment of the future vulnerabilities of forest vegetations to climate change are significant.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.239-245
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• 2017

This study aimed to suggest priority for developing emission factor (EF) and to develop the methodology of quantitative assessment of EF in the forestry sector. Based on the stock-difference method, 17 kinds of EFs (27 EFs based on forest types) were required to calculate the carbon emission in the forestry sector. Priority for developing EFs followed the standards, which is a development plan by the government agency, importance of carbon stock for greenhouse gas, and EFs by the species. Currently, the most urgent development of EFs was carbon fraction in biomass and carbon stock in dead wood. Meanwhile, the quantitative assessment of EF consisted of 7 categories (5 categories of compulsory and 2 categories of quality evaluation) and 12 verification factors. Category in compulsory verification consisted of administrative document, determination methodology of emission factors, emission characteristic, accuracy of measurement and analysis, and data representative. Category in quality evaluation consisted of data management and uncertainty estimates. Based on the importance of factors in the verification process, each factor was scored separately, however, the score needs to be coordinated by the government agency. These results would help build a reliable and accurate greenhouse gas inventory report of Korea.

• Proceedings of The Korean Society of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Conference
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• 2001.06a
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• pp.135-138
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• 2001

The study area, the Kwangnung Experimental Forest (KEF) region is located at the west-central portion of the Korean peninsula (Figure 1), and covers 2, 240ha. Elevations range about from 90m to 600m, and the highest peak is Mt. Jukyeopsan (600.6m). Kwangnung Natural Reserve Forest area is about 1, 200ha, which has been protected from human activities for a long time.(omitted)

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.243-249
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• 2012

Biomass expansion factors, which convert timber volume (or dry weight) to biomass, are used for estimating the forest biomass and accounting for the carbon budget at a regional or national scale. We estimated the biomass conversion and expansion factors (BCEF), biomass expansion factors (BEF), root to shoot ratio (R), and ecosystem biomass expansion factor (EBEF) for Quercus mongolica Fisch. and Quercus variabilis Bl. forests based on publications in Korea. The mean BCEF, BEF, and R for Q. mongolica was 1.0383 Mg/$m^3$ (N = 27; standard deviation [SD], 0.5515), 1.3572 (N = 27; SD, 0.1355), and 0.2017 (N = 32; SD, 0.0447), respectively. The mean BCEF, BEF, and R for Q. variabilis was 0.7164 Mg/$m^3$ (N = 17; SD, 0.3232), 1.2464 (N = 17; SD, 0.0823), and 0.1660 (N = 8; SD, 0.0632), respectively. The mean EBEF, as a simple method for estimating the ground vegetation biomass, was 1.0216 (N = 7; SD, 0.0232) for Q. mongolica forest ecosystems, and 1.0496 (N = 8; SD, 0.0725) for Q. variabilis forest ecosystems. The biomass expansion factor values in this study may be better estimates of forest biomass in Q. mongolica or Q. variabilis forests of Korea compared with the default values given by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.61-71
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• 2015

The objectives of this study are to construct an ecoregion map and to extract ecological factors from each ecoregion to adapt FLR (Forest Landscape Restoration) of North Korea. An ecological map was constructed by PCA(Principal Component Analysis) and MGC(Multivatiate Geographical Clustering). An ANOVA test verified the differences among ecoregions, and post-hoc pair wise comparisons were performed to determine similarities between them. Factor analysis was conducted to extract ecoregional characteristics. Ecoregions were distributed into clusters reflecting differences of south and north and of east and west of their ecological factors. About 12% of land area in North Korea shared similar ecological factors with South Korea, but the remaining 88% was found to be ecologically different. The ANOVA test showed a p-value of 0.000, indicating significant differences between the regions. Post-hoc pair wise comparisons indicated statistically significant similarities in annual mean temperature between ecoregion D and G, precipitation seasonality between ecoregion H and O, and precipitation of the warmest quarter between ecoregion K and O. Because ecoregion A and N showed same in their soil water contents, they were assumed that the dense of forest cover in the Southern ecoregion A is similar to that in the Northern ecoregion N of Korean peninsular. Based on the results of this study, it is necessary to accommodate quantitative and spatial based planning, when South Korea aids forest restoration projects in North Korea. In addition, it is recommended for both South and North Korea to share on Forest Landscape Restoration methodologies with each other.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.172-178
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• 2010

This study was carried out to investigate abiotic and biotic environmental factors affecting homoharringtonine (HHT) contents of Cephalotaxus koreana, whereby, to provide basic information of high value-added industry production of HHT as a promising anti-cancer agent. For correlation between abiotic environmental factors (soil moisture, soil pH, habitat density and temperature) and HHT contents, the contents were highly correlated with soil moisture (0.77) and soil pH (-0.68). For multiple regression analysis of relationship between abiotic environmental factors (soil moisture and soil pH) and HHT contents, soil moisture appeared to be strongly affecting the contents relatively due to being significant at only its regression coefficient ($26.48^{***}$). For the effect of biotic environmental factors (damage index) affecting HHT contents, the contents was quadratic with equation of $H=278.23+1242D-398.87D^2$, also, damage index had strong effect on the contents. Finally, for the result of the most influencing an environmental factor on HHT contents, both damage index and soil moisture were suitable in second polynomial regression, also, damage index ($R^2=0.73^{***}$) was turned out to be more influencing factor than soil moisture ($R^2=0.67^{**}$) on HHT contents relatively. Therefore, we predict that HHT contents in the trees of Cephalotaxus koreana is produced as a chemical defense mechanism triggered by a stress-related damage of fungi or insects.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.157-161
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• 2010

Forest soils are often nitrogen-limited, and nitrogen input to forest soils can cause substantial changes in the structure and functions of a soil ecosystem. To determine the effects of nitrogen input on methane oxidation and the microbial enzyme activities, manipulation experiments were conducted using nitrogen addition to soil samples from Mt. Jumbong. Our findings suggested that the addition of nitrogen to the soil system of Mt. Jumbong did not affect the microbial enzyme activities. Conversely, the addition of nitrogen affected the rate of methane oxidation. Inorganic nitrogen in soils can inhibit methane oxidation via several mechanisms, such as substrate competition, toxic effects, and competition with other microbes, but the inhibitory effects are not always the same. In this research, seasonal changes were found to produce different inhibitory factors, and these different responses may be caused from differences in the methantrophic bacteria community structure.