Many species, cultivars, and hybrids in Populus have been introduced and developed by the scientists of Department of Forest Genetic Resources, Korea Forest Research Institute in Korea. P. alba ${\times}$ glandulosa, P. euramericana, P. nigra ${\times}$ maximowiczii, P. koreana ${\times}$ P. nigra var. italica, and P. davidiana have been studied from many aspects, i.e., genetics, breeding, physiology, propagation, silviculture, biomass production, biotechnology and phytoremediation. These precedent results will provide a sound basis for a newly-arising research on short-rotation coppice as one of renewable resources and phytoremediation plants. It was found that there were many promising varieties and clones for these purposes. However, minute analysis on specific gravity and caloric values for those plants should be followed under several silvicultural and rotational systems.

We scrutinized the Korean taxonomic literature, with special focus on some nomenclatural points and four different cases were listed categorically. Several naked names (nomen nudum), invalidly published names, typographical and orthographical errors, incorrect use of hybrid names and authorship, and errors in the citation of the bibliographic references have appeared in newly published literature in Korea, due to misapplications of ICBN (International Code of Botanical Nomenclature). Although literature review and synonyms are imperative and essential elements of taxonomic study, many author citations tend to be copied from one publication to another without any confirmation of the original source. It is strongly recommended that scientists who have previously published careless work should be more careful, and they should be instructed to read original descriptions and to learn current practices in the code.

We used enzyme electrophoresis to evaluate genetic diversity in five populations of endemic ash, Fraxinus chiisanensis in Korea. Of 15 putative allozyme loci examined 26.7% were polymorphic and expected heterozygosity for the species was low (0.082). Within the range, population were highly differentiated ($F_{ST}$=0.356) and little genetic variation was explained by geography. The pattern of distribution of variation showed low genetic variation within populations and pronounced divergence among populations, which was consistent with the prediction for the effects of limited gene flow and local genetic erosion. Although the frequencies of male plants were dominant ranging from 79.3% to 89.4%, most mating events seems to be inevitable mating between relatives in small populations based on heterozygote deficiency of this species. Small effective population size and the limited dispersal contributed to the low rates of gene flow within as well as between populations.

This study was conducted to investigate the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal biodiversity, spore density and root colonization in relation to site ages at expressway cut-slopes in Korea. Stabilization of exposed surface involved soil amendments and spraying seed mixture of turf grasses and/or nitrogen-fixing shrub species. Eighteen sites were selected with varying ages (2 to 16 years). Soil samples collected in October from each site were analyzed for fungal diversity and spore counts. Fine root samples from the plants were assayed for fungal colonization. Of the total 37 plants inspected in the sites, 26 species had endomycorrhizal colonization with an average root colonization rate of 18%, and with a range from 1 to 67%. The average endomycorrhizal colonization rate of initially introduced Festuca arundinacea which became the most dominant grass in later stage showed 22.8%, while that of Lespedeza bicolor which became the most dominant woody species were 21.6%. Naturally-invading Robinia pseudoacacia showed higher colonization rate in the old sites. Although site age did not show significant effects on fungal diversity, the root colonization rates of initially introduced plants decreased with the site aging, while those of invading plants increased with aging of the sites. The soil chemical properties, pH, N, and P contents, were negatively correlated with spore density, root colonization and endomycorrhizal species diversity. A total of forty arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal species in seven genera were identified. Of the 40 species, Acaulospora lacunosa, Glomus aggregatum, Glomus constrictum, Scutellospora erythropa, and Acaulospora spinosa were the five most dominant species in the decreasing order.

For centuries, forests have been a key component of rural livelihood. They are important both socially and economically in Nepal. Firewood and fodder are the basic forest products that are extracted daily or weekly basis in most of the rural areas in Nepal. In this study, a field survey of 100 households was conducted to examine the degree of forest dependency and forest resource availability, households' livelihood strategy and their relationship with forest dependency in Chitwan, Nepal. A household' response indexes were constructed, Gini coefficient, Head Count Poverty Index (HCI) and Poverty Gap Index (PGI) were calculated and one way ANOVA test was also performed for data analysis. Data revealed that 82/81% of all households were constantly used forest for firewood and fodder collection respectively while 42% of households were used forest or forest fringe for grazing. The Forest Product Availability Indexes (FPAI) showed a sharp decline of forest resources from 0.781 to 0.308 for a 20-yr time horizon while timber wood was noticeably lowered than the other products. Yet, about 33% of households were below the poverty threshold line with 0.0945 PGI. Income distribution among the household showed a lower Gini coefficient 0.25 than 0.37 of landholdings size. However, mean income was significantly varies with F-statistics=246.348 at P=0.05 between income groups (rich, medium and poor). The extraction of firewood, fodder and other forest products were significantly different between the income group with F-statistics=16.480, 19.930, 29.956 at P=0.05 respectively. Similarly, landholdings size and education were also significantly different between the income groups with F-statistics=4.333, 5.981 at P=0.05 respectively. These findings suggested that income status of households was the major indicator of forest dependency while poor and medium groups were highly dependent on the forests for firewood, fodder and other products. Forest dependency still remains high and the availability of forest products that can be extracted from the remaining forestlands is decreasing. The high dependency of households on forest coupled with other socioeconomic attributes like education, poverty, small landholders and so on were possibly caused the forest degradation in Chitwan.Therefore, policy must be directed towards the poor livelihood supporting agenda that may enhance the financial conditions of rural households while it could reduce the degree of forest dependency inspired with other income generating activities in due course.

The growth, carbon and nitrogen status of container grown black pine (Pinus thunbergii) seedlings were examined at various levels of foliar fertilization (control, 0.1%, 0.2%, 0.3%). Root collar diameter, height and dry weight of black pine seedlings increased significantly with increasing levels of foliar fertilization (P<0.05). Carbon concentration in needle of black pine seedlings was significantly higher in the foliar fertilization than in the control treatments (P<0.05), while other seedling components such as stem and roots were not significantly different (P>0.05) between the foliar fertilization and the control treatments. Nitrogen concentration and content were significantly greater in the foliar fertilization than in the control treatments (P<0.05). Shoot/root ratio of black pine seedlings (needle+stem dry weight/root dry weight) was greater in the foliar fertilization (2.40-2.89) than in the control treatments (1.87). However, nitrogen use efficiency was significantly lower (P<0.05) in the foliar fertilization (28-46) than in the control (111) treatments. The results indicate that morphological characteristics and nutritional status on container grown black pine seedlings were enhanced by various levels of foliar fertilization.

This study was conducted to clarify the characteristics of bird communities between before and after forest fire in tropical deciduous Dipterocarp forest of Mondulkiri protected forest of the northeastern Cambodia from January to April 2009. The DBH distribution of trees were different in each DBH class. Most of the trees (> 80%) were belong to < 30 cm DBH. After the forest fire, coverage of understory layers were dramatically decreased by the fire. Total 64 species of birds were recorded, and 64 and 46 species of birds were observed before and after the fire, respectively. Observed number of individuals of bee-eaters, treepies, kingfishers, lapwings, herons, junglefowl, peafowl, prinias and warblers were decreased after the fire. The decrease of those species would be related with the change of habitat condition, such as decrease of water amount and understory coverage. For the management and conservation of junglefowls, peafowls, prinias and warblers, understory vegetation should be maintained in Mondulkiri protected forest, northeastern Cambodia.

Korean wild and forest cultivated ginseng has long been accepted as high medicinal values compared to field cultivated ginseng. Owing to the high price of Korean wild ginseng, Chinese wild and forest cultivated ginseng were smuggled and sold as Korean wild and forest cultivated ginseng. Therefore, an efficient method is required to distinguish Korean ginseng from Chinese ginseng. Microsatellites, simple sequence repeats (SSRs), are highly polymorphic loci present in DNA that consist of repeating units of base pairs. Thus SSR markers are highly advantageous for detection of small genetic variances of intra-species. In the present study, we constructed a microsatellite-enriched genomic library from South Korean wild Panax ginseng. After sequence analysis of 992 randomly picked positive colonies, 126 (12.7%) of the colonies were found to contain microsatellite sequences, and 38 primer pairs were designed. By polymorphism assessment using 36 primer pairs, 4 primers (PG409, PG450, PG491, and PG582) were shown to be polymorphic to distinguish the South Korean ginseng from the Chinese ginseng. These 4 microsatellite markers will provide powerful tools to authenticate South Korean ginseng from Chinese ginseng.

Based on the stem analysis and biomass measurement of 36 trees and 1,576 branches in Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica (Mongolian pine) plantations of Northeast China, this study was conducted to develop estimation model equation for leaf biomass of a single tree and branch, to examine the vertical distribution of leaf biomass in the crown, and to evaluate the proportional ratios of biomass by tree parts, stem, branch, and leaf. The results indicated that DBH and crown length were quite appropriate to estimate leaf biomass. The biomass of single branch was highly correlated with branch collar diameter and relative height of branch in the crown, but not much with stand density, site quality, and tree height. Weibull distribution function would have been appropriate to express vertical distribution of leaf biomass. The shape parameters from 29 sample trees out of 36 were less than 3.6, indicating that vertical distribution of leaf biomass in the crown was displayed by bell-shaped curve, a little inclined toward positive side. Apparent correlationship was obtained between leaf biomass and branch biomass having resulted in linear function equation. The stem biomass occupied around 80% and branch and leaf made up about 20% of total biomass in a single tree. As the level of tree class was increased from class I to class V, the proportion of the stem biomass to total biomass was gradually increased, but that of branch and leaf became decreased.

The objective of this study was to examine the impact of pruning intensity on the vigor and cambial growth of the treated trees, and on the closure of pruning wounds for one year after pruning treatment. Two tree species, Pinus strobus and Acer palmatum, planted broadly in the urban forest of Korea were selected for the experiment. Intensity of pruning, which was estimated by proportion of removed branches, was categorized into five levels with about 10% intervals from lowest 8% up to 46%. Following parameters were examined; cambial electrical resistance (CER) and the cambial growth of trunk at 30 cm above the ground for the years before and after pruning, the cambial growth of stem at 1.5 cm above the branch bark ridge (BBR) of the pruned branch, and closure of pruning wound for one year after pruning. Tree vigor inferred from CER had a tendency to be weakened as pruning intensity increased in P. strobus, while that of A. palmatum was not affected. The trunk growth decreased significantly when the pruning intensity was higher than 30% in both species. The closure of individual pruning wound was related more to the cambial growth of stem at 1.5 cm above BBR than to the pruning intensity. Comparing the closure rate of pruning wound for one year, P. strobus with 72.1% was faster than A. palmatum with 39.3%, which corresponded with the rate of cambial growth of the two species.

Forest disturbances including forest fire, insect pests and diseases, landslides, and forest conversion from 1976 to 2005 were investigated to trace the changes of major forest disturbance agents and their characteristics over time in accordance with changes in natural and social environment in South Korea. While the damaged area by insect pests and diseases continuously decreased for the past 30 years, damaged areas by forest fire and landslide were fluctuating through years. The interval of large forest fires has become shorter with increased tree volume. The precipitation between January and April were significantly correlated with large fire occurrences as Pearson's correlation coefficient -0.400 (P=0.029). The composition of major insect pests and diseases damaging Korean forests has been changed continuously, and become more diversified. While damages by pine caterpillar (Dendrolimus spectabilis) and pine needle gall midge (Thecodiplosis japonensis) decreased, damage by introduced pests has been more serious recently. The change of precipitation pattern that brought more localized heavy rain or powerful typhoon resulted in the recent increase in landslide areas. The major land uses to induce forest conversion have been changed, reflecting the changes in industrial structure in South Korea as agriculture and mining in 1970s, mining and golf ranges classified in pasture in 1980s, and road and housing construction in 1990s and 2000s. Changes in forest disturbance patterns in South Korea show that a country's industrial development is jointly working with global warming on forest stand dynamics. Altering energy structure and land use pattern induced by industrial development accumulates forest volume and reforms microenvironments on forest floor, interacting with climate change, inducing shorter interval of large forest fire and changes in major species composition of forest insect pests and diseases.

We investigated whether cadmium (Cd) toxicity affects phosphorus (P) concentration and growth of poplar, which might be related to the ectomycorrhizal associations. Populus ${\times}$tomentoglandulosa cuttings were treated with 0.1 mM and 0.4 mM $CdSO_4$ and inoculated with ectomycorrhizal fungus, Pisolithus tinctorius (Pt) and grown in autoclaved peat vermiculite mixture for five months under greenhouse conditions. Ectomycorrhizal plants showed significantly higher Cd concentration in leaves, stems and roots than in non-mycorrhizal plants. Likewise, P contents in leaves and roots of ectomycorrhizal plants were higher than those of non-mycorrhizal plants. Acid phosphatase activity in leaves of ectomycorrhizal plants, however, was significantly lower than that of non-mycorrhizal plants. 0.1 mM Cd significantly increased P content in leaves and stems of non-mycorrhizal plants. In spite of high P concentration, which is accompanied by lower acid phosphatase activity, plant growth was not improved by inoculation with P. tinctorius. Total plant dry weight was lower than the non-mycorrhizal counterpart. The results imply that this might be caused by the large amount of energy consumption to alleviate Cd toxicity resulted from high Cd accumulation in their tissues.

This study was conducted to investigate ecological indicators of forest degradation after forest fire and clear-cutting in the Siberian larch (Larix sibirica Ledeb.) stand of Mongolia. The species abundance and biodiversity indices were higher in burned and clear-cut stands than those of reference stand, but boreal understory species, such as Vaccinium vitis-idaea, Pyrola incarnata, Linnea borealis and Maianthemum bifolium, completely disappeared and was replaced by sedge species, such as Carex duriuscula, C. lanceolata, C. pediformis, Poa attenuata and P. pratensis. During the research period, temperature increased by an average of $1.6^{\circ}C$ in burned stand and $1.7^{\circ}C$ in clear-cut stand compared to reference stand, but RH sharply decreased up to 15.7% in clear-cut stand. This result indicates that Larix sibirica stand became warmer and drier after forest fire and clear-cutting, and contributed to the abundance of sedge and grass species in the understory. Moreover, intense occupation of tall sedge grass after forest fire and clear-cutting had a vital role as obstacle on natural regeneration of Larix sibirica. The similarity of species composition between reference and burned stands was higher (73.6%) than between reference and clear-cut stands (63.8%). Soil moisture significantly decreased after forest fire and clear-cutting, and the extent of decrease was more severe in the clear-cut stand. The chemical properties at soil organic layer were significantly affected by forest fire and clear-cutting but not the mineral horizons. Inorganic nitrogen of the forest floor significantly decreased in the clear-cut stand ($1.1{\pm}0.4mg{\cdot}kg^{-1}$) than that of the burned ($4.5{\pm}2.3mg{\cdot}kg^{-1}$) and reference stands ($5.0{\pm}2.3mg{\cdot}kg^{-1}$). Available P of the forest floor significantly increased after fire, whereas it decreased after clear-cutting. These results indicate that existence of boreal understory vegetation, and changes in soil moisture and available P are distinct attributes applicable as ecological indicators for identifying forest degradation in Mongolia.

The objective of this study was to examine the impact of pruning (P treatment) and transplanting (T treatment) of Acer palmatum on cambial growth and compartmentalization of pruning wounds for one year after treatments. Changes of cambial electrical resistance (CER), sizes of pruning wounds, cambial growth of trunks and stems near the wounds, and total phenols at branch unions during the period were examined using a total of 49 trees. After harvesting, areas of discolored wood behind the wounds, relative proportions of extractives, holocellulose and lignin at branch unions were also determined. CER and the cambial growth of trunk at 30 cm above the ground (TGR) were inversely correlated, and differences of CER and TGR among three treatments were significant. TGRs of control, P treatment and P+T treatment after the treatments were 112.2%, 72.4% and 52.5% of the annual growth for the year before the treatments, respectively. The cambial growth rate of stem (SGR) at 1.5 cm above the branch bark ridge and the closure rate of pruning wound (WCR) for one year after treatments were positively correlated, and WCR of P treatment of 39.8% was significantly higher than that of P+T treatment of 31.8%. Wounds of P+T treatment formed greater discolored area per unit area of pruning wound (D/W Ratio) than those of P treatment significantly. Lower WCR and higher D/W Ratio of P+T treatment suggested less ability of compartmentalizing the wounds than P treatment. Total phenols at branch core of pruning wound for both treatments heightened a month after treatment, and then lowered. The contents at below core of the wound were higher than those at control ones continuously, while they became similar each other at above core. Relatively high phenol contents of the extractives at P+T treatment implied that trees with P+T treatment allocated more energy to compartmentalize their wounds. Holocellulose and lignin contents at the branch core of treated branch unions of both treatments were lower and higher, respectively, than at the same part of the union with living branch, as results of the tree reaction to protection from wounding and microbial invasion.