• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.271-279
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• 2015

After the reversion of Okinawa (Ryukyu Islands) to Japan in 1972, extensive urban and agricultural development resulted in a significant increase in sediment discharge to coastal waters. The release of sediment has caused the degradation of freshwater and coastal ecosystems and biodiversity. A consideration for catchment-to-reef continua, as well as agricultural (socioeconomic) factors is necessary to establish proper land-based management plans for the conservation of the island environment. We have set up a framework to integrate biophysics and socioeconomics: 1) setting a conservation target and threshold, 2) identifying the sources and processes, and 3) examining cost-effectiveness and management priorities. The framework may be applicable to other tropical and subtropical islands with similar characteristics.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.943-953
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• 2012

Because of their unique properties, nano-sized metallic nanomaterials (NMs) have been used in extensive applications of biomedicine, electronics, optics, engineering, and personal care products. Accordingly, with the increasing release of NMs into the environment, numerous studies of nanoecotoxicity have been conducted. Fish embryo toxicity test (FET) has many benefits in evaluating toxicity of NMs as an alternative to a whole-body test in fish. In this study, we collected and analyzed the toxicity studies of metallic NMs on freshwater fish embryos. Most studies have demonstrated that metallic NMs are highly toxic during the early development of fish embryos. However, it should be noted that the results for the same NMs on the same test species show variation due to differences in the size or surface properties of the test NMs and exposure conditions. For the safe use of metallic NMs, we need to analyze their effects based on their properties, test species, environmental media, and diverse conditions.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.228-235
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• 2015

Stream ecosystems are closely related to many human activities. Therefore, streams are affected by anthropogenic disturbances such as riverine development and gravel-mining as well as deterioration of water quality. The goal of this study was to elucidate the recolonization process of the macroinvertebrate community after a small-scale anthropogenic disturbance. Field studies were conducted at three sites in a natural stream. The number of recolonizing species tended to increase slightly over time, exceeding the total species number of the control. Ephemeroptera contributed the most to shaping the recolonizing pattern of the entire community. From the result of changes in dominant species, the early recolonizers of each site were the species that showed more frequent occurrence particulary at each sites. But the late recolonizers are Chironomidae at all the sites commonly. This result implies that the actual differences exist among the recolonizing trends of each benthic macroinvertebrate taxon. Collector-gatherers and scrapers comprised about 70% of the recolonizing species. These results indicate that the recolonizing process of an aquatic community after an artificial disturbance depends on the environmental conditions(particularly substratum composition or organic pollution) of the habitat.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.343-353
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• 2016

Oligochaetes distribute widely in freshwater ecosystem, and some species are used as bioindicators for water quality assessment because they are tolerant to organic enrichment. They are acknowledged for potential for environmental health recovery of organic polluted environment. There are a lot of studies on ecology and toxicity assessment using oligochaetes in aquatic environment. In this study, we reviewed literature on ecotoxicology of aquatic oligochaetes. We searched literature from a database 'google scholar' by using keywords such as aquatic, oligochaete, and toxicity. The literature were summarized according to publication years, species, test methods, and chemicals. We obtained 133 articles published from 1953 to 2015 from the database. Among them, 58 papers(43.6% of total) have been published in 1990s. Three species(Lumnbriculus variegatus, Tubifex tubifex, and Limnodrilus hoffmeisteri) have been used most frequently in the study. Different species displayed different toxicological responses to different toxic chemicals. The results on the ecotoxicological study with aquatic oligochaetes revealed the possibility of the development for early warning system using aquatic oligochaetes to monitor aquatic ecosystem disturbance.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.385-393
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• 2019

Chironomid communities are indicators of water pollution because of their ability to thrive under freshwater conditions. However, it is difficult to distinguish between chironomid larvae based on morphology. DNA barcoding, based on nucleotide sequences of marker genes, can be used to identify chironomid larvae. Samples of chironomid larvae were collected from Gwangju Stream and Pungyeongjeong Stream, tributaries of the Yeongsan River in South Korea. We identified 3 subfamilies, 13 genera, 16 species, and 1 cryptic species. There were 7 genera and 10 species from the subfamily Chironominae, 5 genera and 5 species from subfamily Orthocladiinae, 1 genus and 1 species from subfamily Tanipodinae, and the cryptic chironomid species of the family Chironomidae. There were 21 individuals from, 7 species and 1 cryptic species from the Gwangju Stream and 24 individuals, belonging to 10 species from the Pungyeongjeong Stream. The only species detected in both streams was Cricotopus bicinctus. The relationship between water quality and the species detected was difficult to explain, but the number of species showed a tendency to increase at sites where water quality was poor. Additional investigations and studies are needed to understand the relationship between water quality and the chironomid species occurring in these two streams.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.23 no.12
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• pp.2015-2028
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• 2014

We analyzed with HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography) analysis photosynthetic pigments and environmental factors, microscopic observations of the phytoplankton and zooplankton in the seawater every month from February 2009 to November 2010 in Haengam Bay. The level of dissolved inorganic nutrients was the highest between July and September, when freshwater influx was at its peak, whereas chlorophyll a levels were the highest in April and August. Also, phytoplankton pigment concentration increased when dissolved inorganic nutrients are carried into nearshore waters by rainfall runoff. Based on identification of phytoplankton and photosynthetic pigments results, diatoms were mainly dominant while dinoflagellate populations increased at July and August 2009, May 2010. The zooplankton communities are dominated in terms of Noctiluca scintillans. The contribution of Noctiluca scintillans in 2010 accounts for approximately 77.3% of the total zooplankton. Distribution patterns over time of zooplankton in the seasonal distribution of phytoplankton showed a different pattern.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.12-24
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• 2023

The Songji lagoon is brackish environment with a mixture of saline and fresh water, and the interaction of groundwater-lagoon water creates a physicochemical gradient. Although some studies have been conducted on the hydrological and geochemical characteristics of the Songji lagoon, microbial ecological studies have not yet been conducted. In this study, we investigated the effect of groundwater and surface water interaction on water quality as well as microbial community changes in the Songji Lagoon using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Hydrochemical analyses show that samples were classified as 5 hydrochemical facies (HF) and hydrochemical facies evolution (HFE) revealed the intrusion phase was more dominant (57.9%) than the freshening phase (42.1%). Higher microbial diversity was found in freshwater in comparison to saline water samples. The microbial community at the phylum level shows the most dominance of Proteobacteria with an average of 37.3%, followed by Bacteroidota, Actinobacteria, and Patescibacteria. Heat map analyses of the top 18 genera showed that samples were clustered into 5 groups based on type, and Pseudoalteromonas could be used potential indicator for seawater intrusion.

• Journal of Aquaculture
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.315-322
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• 2006

The objective of the present study was to investigate the expression of heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) and 70 (HSP70) mRNA as cellular stress responses, the levels of plasma cortisol with glucose as neuro-endocrine stress responses during water temperature rising in freshwater adapted black porgy, Acanthopagrus schlegeli. A cDNA fragment of 891 (HSP90) and 465 (HSP70) bp was cloned from black porgy testis by Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) with primers designed from the conserved regions of other teleost. The PCR product of HSP90 showed very high homology to red seabream (99%), rainbow trout (95%), Atlantic salmon (94%), zebrafish (94%) HSP90, HSP70 of black porgy was also highly similar to those of rainbow trout (96%), silver seabream (95%), zebrafish (95%) HSP70. Water temperature rising ($20{\sim}30^{\circ}C$) induced elevation of HSP90 mRNA in black porgy gonad, liver, brain, intestine and kidney, whereas it resulted in an induction of the HSP70 mRNA expression in gonad only. Plasma cortisol levels increased significantly at $30^{\circ}C$ in the fish compared to those at $20^{\circ}C$. Glucose levels of the fish showed a tendency of co-increase with cortisol during water temperature rising. These results suggest that increased HSP90 mRNA in liver with plasma cortisol following heat shock may be related to increasing glucose for homeostasis in this species.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.288-302
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• 2017

Accurate measurement of benthic nutrient fluxes (BNF) is a prerequisite for evaluating the effect of sediments on nutrient cycle in the surface water. The intact sediment cores were collected in July 2015 at the midstream of Nakdong River. We identified pre-incubation time (6, 12, 24 hr), dissolved oxygen concentration (90, 70, 50% saturation), diffusive boundary layer thickness (0, 0.6-0.8, 1.2-1.4 mm), and incubation temperature (10, 17, 20, $25^{\circ}C$) as the most important control factors, and measured the BNF fluctuation with the variation of these factors using the laboratory sediment core incubation method. Since the chemical composition, redox condition, hydrodynamic regimes and microbial activities at the sediment-water interface were changed as a result of the alteration of control factors, sediment core incubation should be conducted under as close to the natural conditions of study site as possible, in order to produce the results similar to actual values. Relative percentage differences between two replicates were below 20% in most control factors, which showed satisfactory precision for strict compliance with the experimental conditions and procedures. In the further studies, we will compare the results of core incubation with those of in situ measurements to confirm the accuracy of the sediment core incubation method.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.459-466
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• 2007

To analyze the water characteristics in the dry and wet seasons, the data for temperature, salinity, nutrients and $chl-{\alpha}$ were used, which were observed in the south coastal area of Korea during April to October 2000. At Yeosu in the south coast of Korea, the higher values of 35.0 psu in salinity were shown in March and April, the lower values of 23.0 psu in salinity were shown in August and September. The annual range of salinity was 12.0 psu. The total amount of precipitation in the wet season (July to October) was occupied 68% (about 846 mm) during 2000. The precipitation of the dry season (November to June) was occupied 32% (about 394 mm) in the year In the coastal area, the salinity variation is distinct in the period of July to October. Based on this result, we divided the season into two parts: the dry season during April to June and the wet season during July to October. Factor analysis was shown that temperature has strong negative relation and nutrients show positive relations in the dry season by the factor 1, which explains the total valiance of 50.6% at the surface water. In the wet season, salinity has negative relation and nutrients show positive relation by the factor 2, which explains the total variance of 33.5%. The bottom layer also showed similar to those of surface water in the results of factor analysis. These mean that nutrients become rich due to the freshwater inflow in the wet season. The low saline water is shown not only in the south coast but also in the overall region in the South Sea of Korea. It is suggested that the South Sea of Korea may call a ROFI (Region of Freshwater Influence) system in summer.