River estuaries are dynamic and productive ecosystems with high regional biodiversity. Environmental DNA (eDNA) has become a useful approach to assessing biodiversity in aquatic ecosystems. This study was conducted to investigate fish community characteristics and species diversity in two river estuary ecosystems, the Taehwa River and Changwon Stream. We further compared conventional and eDNA metabarcoding analyses of the fish communities. The conventional survey was performed in May, July, and October 2022, while the eDNA analysis was conducted only in May. We observed various fish species with different life histories, including carp, goby, and marine fish. We also found that migratory fish, such as dace Tribolodon hakonensis, sweetfish Plecoglossus altivelis, and eel Auguilla japonica, occurred in the Taehwa River, suggesting high river connectivity. Marine fish species were predominant in the Changwon Stream, as this river is located close to the sea. The diversity indices showed that the Taehwa River generally had higher species richness, evenness, and diversity values than the Changwon Stream. A total of 9-19 species were detected in the conventional survey for the three sites, whereas 11-18 species were found from eDNA analysis. The findings indicate that the sensitivity of eDNA was similar to or higher than that of the conventional method. Our study findings suggest the efficiency and efficacy of eDNA-based fish community monitoring, although with some shortcomings in applying the genetic marker to Korean fish, including no clear-cut distinction for Korean endemic species and/or genetically closely related species groups.

Understanding the landscapes and the elements that make up the landscapes can help us understand the entire natural ecosystems and biodiversity. Landscape ecology has been studied since the past. however, many studies are conducted on single landscapes, and comparative studies between landscapes are few. We compared insect species diversity and community structure within a single plant community across landscapes and habitat. Additionally, identify environmental factors that affect diversity. Our results showed that above-ground and below-ground insect communities were clearly distinguished. Additionally, species diversity was high below-ground in all landscapes. Insect community structures across landscapes did not differ in above-ground. However, below-ground, the urban was differentiated from the forest and agricultural land. We identified the urbanization indices GMIS and PHBASE as factors responsible for these difference.

Riptortus pedestris has established symbiotic interactions with specific bacteria from soil environment in every generations. The soil environment is extremely heterogeneous with microbial diversity, suggesting that bacterial composition of the R. pedestris can be affected by surrounding environments. Therefore, we investigated spatiotemporal variation of bacterial communities in wild R. pedestris collected from five mainland areas and Jeju Island in South Korea across insect generations. Among the 390 R. pedestris adults collected, we detected a total of 28 bacterial genera from the symbiotic region of insects. Among the bacterial genera, genus Caballeronia bacteria was the most abundantly detected regardless of sampling site and generation. Nevertheless, bacterial richness varied among the insect generations with 10 genera detected in overwintered generation, 15 genera in the 1st generation and 18 genera in the 2nd generation. Moreover, we found five bacterial genera that were exclusively detected from the Jeju island compared to the mainland areas surveyed.

Although the abundance of Metapenaeus joyneri resources with high commercial value was recently confirmed in the outer waters of Gomso Bay, located between Buan-gun and Gochang-gun, Jeollabuk-do, Metapenaeus joyneri resources have not been efficiently utilized due to the absence of fishing gears and methods for a selective Metapenaeus joyneri capture. Therefore, in this study, we adopted shrimp dredge as a trial fishing gear for the Metapenaeus joyneri capture, and analyzed the species composition and cluster community structure of aquatic organisms caught by the shrimp dredge, from May to September 2021 at the coastal waters of Gochang-gun, Jeollabuk-do. During the experimental period, 28 types of marine species of 29,190 individuals and 250,136 g of total biomass were caught. Among them, the population of Metapenaeus joyneri, the target species, dominated by 80.7%, followed by Thrysa chefuensis with 7.1%, and Leiognathus nuchalis with 6.0%, confirming that the fishing ratio of Metapenaeus joyneri was the highest among all species.

In recent years, macroalgal bloom occurs frequently in coastal oceans worldwide. It might be attributed to accelerating climate change. “Green tide” events caused by proliferation of green macroalgae (Ulva spp.) not only damage the local economy, but also harm coastal environments. These nuisance events have become common across several coastal regions of continents. In Korea, green tide incidences are readily seen throughout the year along the coastlines of Jeju Island, particularly the northeastern coast, since the 2000s. Ulva species are notorious to be difficult for morphology-based species identification due to their high degrees of phenotypic plasticity. In this study, to investigate temporal variation in Ulva community structure on Jeju Island between 2015 and 2020, chloroplast barcode tuf A gene was sequenced and phylogenetically analyzed for 152 specimens from 24 sites. We found that Ulva ohnoi and Ulva pertusa known to be originated from subtropical regions were the most predominant all year round, suggesting that these two species contributed the most to local green tides in this region. While U. pertusa was relatively stable in frequency during 2015 to 2020, U. ohnoi increased 16% in frequency in 2020 (36.84%), which might be associated with rising sea surface temperature from which U. ohnoi could benefit. Two species (Ulva flexuosa, Ulva procera) of origins of Europe should be continuously monitored. The findings of this study provide valuable information and molecular genetic data of genus Ulva occurring in southern coasts of Korea, which will help mitigate negative influences of green tide events on Korea coast.

To assess the characteristics of meiofaunal community fluctuations related to environmental factors, seasonal surveys were conducted in the subtidal zone of Hallyeohaesang National Park. The average depth of the study area was about 20 m, and the average water temperature at the bottom was low in winter (11.33°C) and high in summer (17.95°C). The sedimentary particles mainly comprised silt and clay at most stations. The abundance of meiofauna ranged from 81.7 to 1,296.5 Inds. 10 cm-2, and the average abundance was 589.3 Inds. 10 cm-2. The average abundance of meiofauna in each season was the lowest at 416.5 Inds. 10 cm-2 in winter and the highest at 704.5 Inds. 10 cm-2 in spring. The dominant taxa were nematodes (about 92%) and harpacticoids (about 5%). In the cluster analysis of meiofaunal communities, they were divided into four significant groups. The largest group mainly contained spring and summer samples, and contained stations with a high nematode density of over 500 Inds. 10 cm-2 and harpacticoids below 50 Inds. 10 cm-2 with a high composition ratio of nematodes. In the cluster analysis, no regional division was found between the stations, and it was thought to be divided by the seasons with high abundance according to seasonal variation and the composition ratio of nematodes and harpacticoids. In the Spearman rank correlation analysis, the density of total meiofauna and the most dominant taxa, nematodes, was not significantly related to environmental factors. However, the density of harpacticoids had a significant positive correlation with water depth and a negative correlation with sediment particle size.

In this study, the community structure of marine benthic invertebrates was examined to evaluate the differences between the west, south, and east coasts of Korea and to identify the indicator species representing each region. Acrylic attachment plate sets were installed in Jeongok, Mokpo, Tongyeong, Yangpo, and Gangreung, and the invertebrate fauna thus captured were identified. Monitoring was performed in each area from March 2017 to May 2018. Water depth, temperature, and salinity at each location were measured to determine the potential influence of abiotic factors on the community structure. As a result, the mean depth of plates installed and the water temperature were significantly different in each area. A total of 32 invertebrate species were identified in all localities, and the most significant difference in the species compositions was found between Mokpo and Gangreung. The community structure differed significantly with a change in the plate depth, and a larger number of indicator species appeared on shallower plates. Finally, we determined the community structure of benthic invertebrates in different geographical regions of the Korean ocean by characterizing the dominant invertebrate taxa and the indicator species at each site.

Fish assemblage of total 325 of Korean peninsula estuaries were surveyed to analyze the characteristics of community structure and diversity by sea areas for three years from 2016 to 2018. The scale (stream width) of Korean estuaries were various (14~3,356 m), and 68.9% of all estuaries showed salinity of less than 2 psu. Total 149 species classified into 52 families of fish were identified, and the dominant and sub-dominant species were Tribolodon hakonensis (relative abundance, RA, 12.5%) and Mugil cephalus (RA, 9.5%), respectively. The estuary of the Korean Peninsula had different physical and chemical habitat environments depending on the sea area, and accordingly, fish community structure also showed statistically significant differences (PERMANOVA, Pseudo-F=26.69, P=0.001). In addition, the NMDS (nonmetric multidimensional scaling) results showed the patterns that indicating fish community difference by sea areas, even though low community similarity within sea area (SIMPER, 21.79~26.39%). The estuaries of east sea areas were distinguished from the others in the aspects of which, the higher importance of migratory fishes and endangered species, and that of brackish species were characterized at south sea estuaries. However, the estuaries of west sea showed higher importance of species that have a relation with freshwater (primary freshwater species, exotic species), which is the result that associating with the lower salinity of west sea estuaries because of the high ratio of closed estuaries (78.2%). The SIMPER analysis, scoring the contribution rates of species to community similarity, also showed results corresponding to the tendency of different fish community structures according to each sea area. So far, In Korea, most studies on fish communities in estuaries have been conducted in a single estuary unit, which made it difficult to understand the characteristics of estuaries at the national level, which are prerequisite for policy establishment. In present study, we are providing fish community structure characteristics of Korean estuaries in a national scale, including diversity index, habitat salinity ranges of major species, distribution of migratory species. We are expecting that our results could be utilized as baseline information for establishing management policies or further study of Korean estuaries.

여름철 장강 저염수의 확장은 북부 동중국해의 환경 및 식물플랑크톤 다양성과 군집구조에 영향을 미치는 주요 요인으로 알려져 있다. 2020년 하계는 장강 저염수의 방류량이 매우 높았던 시기로 환경 특성 변화에 따라 식물플랑크톤 다양성 및 군집구조에 미치는 동력을 이해하기 위해 현장관측을 수행하였다. 2020년 8월 16일~17일 이어도호 승선조사와 2020년 8월 15일~21일 이어도 해양과학기지(IORS)에서 체 류조사를 실시하였다. 조사 정점들에서 CTD로 측정한 결과 조사 수역 남서쪽은 장강 저염수의 영향을 받아 염분이 낮고 엽록소 형광값이 높 았으며, 대마난류의 영향을 받은 남동수역은 염분이 높고 엽록소 형광값이 낮았다. 12개 정점의 표층수 시료의 엽록소 a 농도는 미소형(20~3 μm) 및 소형(> 20 μm) 식물플랑크톤의 생체량이 우점함을 나타냈으며, 대마난류수의 영향을 받은 정점에서만 초미소 식물플랑크톤(< 3 μm) 생체량이 약 50%를 차지하였다. 이러한 표층수의 식물플랑크톤 크기 분포는 영양염류 공급과 관련되어 장강 저염수의 높은 질산염 공급을 받는 정점들은 소형 식물플랑크톤의 생체량 기여율이 높았다. 형태분류 결과 미소형 및 소형 식물플랑크톤은 총 45종이며, 이들 중 우점 분 류군은 규조류인 Guinardia flaccida, Nitzschia spp.와 와편모조류인 Gonyaulax monacantha, Noctiluca scintillans, Gymnodinium spirale, Heterocapsa spp., Prorocentrum micans, Tripos furca 등이었다. 대마난류의 영향을 받으며 질산염 농도가 낮은 정점들은 광합성 초미소 진핵생물(PPE)의 개 체수와 광합성 초미소 원핵생물(PPP)인 Synechococcus의 개체수가 높았다. 질산염/인산염 비는 대부분 정점에서 인산염 제한을 받고 있음을 나타냈다. 유세포 분석 결과 Synechococcus 개체수는 난류의 영향을 받는 빈영양 수역의 정점들에서 높은 개체수를 보였다. NGS 분석 결과 PPP 중 Synechococcus는 29개의 clades가 나타났고, 이 중 한 시료에서 한 번이라도 1% 이상의 우점율을 보인 clade는 11개로 나타났다. 표층수 에선 clade II가 우점분류군이었으며 SCM 층에서 다양한 clades(I과 IV 등)가 차우점군들로 분포하였다. Prochlorococcus 속은 난류 수역에서 high light adapted 생태형이 출현하는 양상을 보였으며 북쪽 수역에선 출현하지 않았다. PPE는 총 163개의 높은 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) 다양성을 보였으며, 이 중 한 시료에서 한 번이라도 5% 이상의 우점률을 나타낸 OTU는 총 11개였다. 장강 저염수의 영향을 받는 정 점의 표층수에선 Amphidinium testudo가 우점 분류군이었으며, SCM 층에서 녹조류가 최우점하였다. 대마난류의 영향을 받는 해역에서는 다양 한 분류군의 착편모조류가 우점하였다. IORS에서의 관측 결과도 주변 정점들과 식물플랑크톤 생체량, 크기분포, 다양성에서 유사한 수준을 나타냈다. 이번 연구 결과는 장강 저염수의 영향에 따른 식물플랑크톤의 반응을 다양한 분야에서 확인할 수 있었다. 또한, IORS와 승선조사 를 비교하여 IORS 관측이 장강 저염수의 식물플랑크톤 동적 역학 모니터링에 활용할 수 있음을 확인하였다. 향후 기후변화에 따라 나타날 동중국해 하계 환경 및 생태계의 변화에 대비하여 IORS의 효과적 이용 방안 수립이 필요할 것으로 판단된다.