The fish community in the Seomjin River-Seomjin River Estuary-Gwangyang Bay coast continuum was investigated three times from March 2019 to October 2019. The collected species at the eight sites during the survey period were 49 species belonging to 31 families, including two endangered species. According to Bray-Curtis similarities, observations were divided into four groups based on the fish community composition; two groups (group 1, 2) and two uncategorized groups (group 3, 4). ANOSIM based on spatial and temporal groupings indicated that the spatial differences in fish communities (R=0.398, P=0.001) were relatively more important than the temporal differences (analysis of similarities, R=0.273, P=0.002). In particular, there were significant differences between groups 1 and 2 (analysis of similarities, R=0.556, P=0.001), and similarity percentage analysis revealed that Argyrosomus argentatus (9.4%), Favonigobius gymnauchen (6.9%) and Konosirus punctatus (5.9%) contributed to these differences of fish assemblages for each group. The fish fauna distributed in the Seomjin River-Gwangyang Bay ecosystem were spatially divided and the number of species and number of individuals showed seasonal differences. This study could be a basis for understanding changes in the fish community and implementing conservation and management strategies on major species within a continuous environment of the river-estuary-ocean continuum.

어류군집은 자연적인 환경 변화뿐만 아니라 인위적 교란에 민감하게 반응하기 때문에, 어류상 및 군집 분석을 통해 수생태계의 서식처 건강성을 종합적으로 평가할 수 있다. 본 연구는 섬진강 수계 본·지류 총 14개 지점을 대상으로 어류상 및 피라미의 전장-체중 관계를 파악하기 위해 2018년 7월부터 2019년 5월까지 어류 조사를 실시하였다. 그 결과 채집된 어류는 한국고유종 19종과 법적보호종 2종을 포함하여 14과 49종으로 확인되었다. Bray-Curtis 유사도에 따르면, 14개 지점은 어류군집 구성에 따라 크게 A, B 두 개의 그룹과 그룹 내 속하지 않는 2개의 지점 (그룹 C, D)으로 나뉘었다. 특히, 그룹 A와 B 간에 유의한 차이가 존재하였으며 (ANOSIM R=0.722, p=0.002), 참갈겨니 (8.55%), 배스 (6.90%), 블루길 (4.90%)이 두 그룹의 차 이에 기여한 것으로 나타났다. 그룹 A는 외래종인 배스, 블루길의 출현이 높게 나타났으며, 그룹 B는 국내 하천 생태계 최 우점종인 피라미와 참갈겨니의 출현이 주요하였다. 본 조사에서 우점한 피라미를 대상으로 전장-체중 관계식에 의한 지점별 회귀계수 b값은 2.82~3.80까지 나타나 지점별로 다양한 성장도를 나타냈다. 따라서 본 연구는 섬진강 수계의 전반적인 어류상과 피라미를 바탕으로 어류의 성장도를 파악할 수 있는 기초자료로서 활용될 수 있을 것 이다.

We identified research trends for freshwater exotic species in South Korea using text mining methods in conjunction with bibliometric analysis. We searched scientific and common names of freshwater exotic species as searching keywords including 1 mammal species, 3 amphibian-reptile species, 11 fish species, 2 aquatic plant species. A total of 245 articles including research articles and abstracts of conference proceedings published by 56 academic societies and institutes were collected from scientific article databases. The search keywords used were the common names for the exotic species. The 20th century (1900’s) saw the number of articles increase; however, during the early 21st century (2000’s) the number of published articles decreased slowly. The number of articles focusing on physiological and embryological research was significantly greater than taxonomic and ecological studies. Rainbow trout and Nile tilapia were the main research topic, specifically physiological and embryological research associated with the aquaculture of these species. Ecological studies were only conducted on the distribution and effect of large-mouth bass and nutria. The ecological risk associated with freshwater exotic species has been expressed yet the scientific information might be insufficient to remove doubt about ecological issues as expressed by interested by individuals and policy makers due to bias in research topics with respect to freshwater exotic species. The research topics of freshwater exotic species would have to diversify to effectively manage freshwater exotic species.