• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.6_2
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• pp.1643-1652
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• 2022

Deposited Marine Debris(DMD) can negatively affect marine ecosystems, fishery resources, and maritime safety and is mainly detected by sonar sensors, lifting frames, and divers. Considering the limitation of cost and time, recent efforts are being made by integrating underwater images and artificial intelligence (AI). We conducted a comparative study of You Only Look Once Version 5 (YOLOv5) and You Only Look Once Version 7 (YOLOv7) models to detect DMD from underwater images for more accurate and efficient management of DMD. For the detection of the DMD objects such as glass, metal, fish traps, tires, wood, and plastic, the two models showed a performance of over 0.85 in terms of Mean Average Precision (mAP@0.5). A more objective evaluation and an improvement of the models are expected with the construction of an extensive image database.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.384-389
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• 2021

This study was conducted on October 23, 2020 at the Cheongpyeong Reservoir located in Seorakmyeon, Gapyeong-gun, Gyeonggi-do, and analyzed the horizontal and vertical distribution patterns of fish based on data obtained using fishfinder. The total surface area of fishfinder survey conducted was 782,853 m², and where the water depth (WD) ranges from 10 m to 12 m is widest which 31.7% of total surface area. As a result of the heat map analysis, fish density was highest at right bank under the Gapyeong-bridge, but there was no specific pattern in horizontal distribution of fish. As a result of vertical distribution of fish analysis, 86.6% of fishes are observed at below 6 m of the fish depth (FD, distance from water surface to fish). As a result of the relative height (RH, water depth-distance from bottom to fish ratio) analysis, there was a tendency that fishes are distributed in near surface area more as the WD increased. This tendency could have various reasons such as water temperature gradient along the water depth, and further studies are required for detailed explanation.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.5_3
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• pp.913-924
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• 2022

In this paper, we presented a database construction of undersea images for the Habitats of Ecklonia cava and Sargassum and conducted an experiment for semantic segmentation using state-of-the-art (SOTA) models such as High Resolution Network-Object Contextual Representation (HRNet-OCR) and Shifted Windows-L (Swin-L). The result showed that our segmentation models were superior to the existing experiments in terms of the 29% increased mean intersection over union (mIOU). Swin-L model produced better performance for every class. In particular, the information of the Ecklonia cava class that had small data were also appropriately extracted by Swin-L model. Target objects and the backgrounds were well distinguished owing to the Transformer backbone better than the legacy models. A bigger database under construction will ensure more accuracy improvement and can be utilized as deep learning database for undersea images.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.270-279
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• 2022

In this paper, system dynamics considering dynamics and time was examined to study the changes in system structure according to reinforcement (policy intervention) of regulation and punishment for fishing boats, and the strategizing directions were analyzed. Until now, regulations and punishments on fishing boats have been conducted temporarily and short-term as a precautionary measure to prevent accidents and imposed penalties. However, due to various anomalous side effects, the expected results were not achieved, negligent accidents occurred constantly, and follow-up measures were repeated. Resultantly, the regulation and punishment of fishing boats is a reinforced safety standard, and there is a necessity to improve facilities, equipment, and industry, and develop technology (including time delay) to prevent accidents. However, as the negative (illegal) activities continue without immediate and significant resistance, the safety blind spot for accident prevention cannot be minimized. Thus, policy intervention based on linear thinking without sufficiently considering variables of the dynamic mechanism and time can distort the basic values pursued by the policy. For the regulation and punishment of fishing boats, a strategy to supplement the mechanism should be prepared prior to the preparation of reinforced safety standards. Improvement and development of related technologies, mandatory training hours for anglers, fishing industry, and related organizations, proposal of specific action plan for Fishing Management and Promotion Act for growing fishing-related industries.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.368-375
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• 2022

Gut contents analysis is essential to predict the impact of organisms on food source changes due to variations of the habitat environment. Previous studies of gut content analysis have been conducted using traditional methods, such as visual observation. However, these studies are limited in analyzing food sources because of the digestive process in gut organ. DNA metabarcoding analysis is a useful method to analyze food sources by supplementing these limitations. We sampled marine fish of Pennahia argentata, Larimichthys polyactis, Crangon affinis, Loligo beka and Sepia officinalis from Gwangyang Bay and Yeosu fisheries market for analyzing gut contents by applying DNA metabarcoding analysis. 18S rRNA v9 primer was used for analyzing food source by DNA metabarcoding. Network and two-way clustering analyses characterized the relationship between organisms and food sources. As a result of comparing metabarcoding of gut contents for P. argentata between sampled from Gwangyang Bay and the fisheries market, fish and Copepoda were analyzed as common food sources. In addition, Decapoda and Copepoda were analyzed as common food sources for L. polyactis and C. affinis, respectively. Copepoda was analyzed as the primary food source for L. beka and S. officinalis. These study results demonstrated that gut contents analysis using DNA metabarcoding reflects diverse and detailed information of biological food sources in the aquatic environment. In addition, it will be possible to provide biological information in the gut to identify key food sources by applying it to the research on the food web in the ecosystem.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.352-359
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• 2022

Recently, with the development of genetic technology, interest in environmental DNA (eDNA) to study biodiversity according to molecular biological approaches is increasing. Environmental DNA has many advantages over traditional research methods for biological communities distributed in the environment but highly depends on the established base sequence database. This study conducted a comprehensive analysis of the habitat status and classification at the genus level, which is mainly used in eDNA (12S rRNA, 16S rRNA, 18S rRNA, COI, and CYTB), focusing on Korean registration taxon groups (phytoplankton, zooplankton, macroinvertebrates, and fish). As a result, phytoplankton and zooplankton showed the highest taxa proportion in 18S rRNA, and macroinvertebrates observed the highest ratio in the nucleotide sequence database in COI. In fish, all genes except 18S rRNA showed a high taxon ratio. Based on the Korean registration taxon group, the gene construction of the top 20 genera according to bio density observed that most of the phytoplankton were registered in 18S rRNA, and the most significant number of COI nucleotide sequences were established in macroinvertebrates. In addition, it was confirmed that there is a nucleotide sequence for the top 20 genera in 12S rRNA, 16S rRNA, and CYTB in fish. These results provided comprehensive information on the genes suitable for eDNA research for each taxon group.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.360-367
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• 2022

Research on food sources through DNA metabarcoding is being used for various organisms based on high resolution and reproducibility. In the study, we investigated the difference in food sources between pre and post-starving in the three bivalve species (Anemina acaeformis, Anodonta woodiana, and Unio douglasiae) through DNA metabarcoding using 18S rRNA V9 primer. The food source of pre-starving appeared in 87 genera, 71 families, 51 orders, 35 classes, and 22 phyla. The primary food sources were the zoo and phytoplankton, including Chlamydomonadales, Euglenales, Ploima, Sphaeropleales, and Stephanodiscales. However, all zoo and phytoplankton were not observed after starving except Schizopyrenida and Rotifera. In Levin's niche breadth analysis, the Bi index of A. woodiana is 0.3, which was higher than A. acaeformis(0.14) and U. douglasiae (0.21), indicating that they feed on various food sources. The niche overlap of A. acaeformis was measured as 0.78 in A. woodiana, 0.7 in U. douglasiae showing a relative high value compared to other bivalves. The trophic level of A. acaeformis, A. woodiana, and U. douglasiae based on the food source information were investigated as 2.0, 2.0, and 2.5, respectively. The results of the previous study on the trophic level using stable isotopes showed 1.8 to 2.4 values were similar to the results of this study. These results suggest that DNA metabarcoding can be an effective analyzing tool for the gut content in the bivalves.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.212-220
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• 2022

An estuary is a water ecosystem with a high abundance of the species diversity, due to a variety of complex physicochemical factors of the area where freshwater and ocean mixed. The identification of Corbicula species in the estuary environments is difficult because of various morphological characteristics. In this study, we provide taxonomic information on Corbicula species with taxonomic difficulties using morphological and genetic analysis. This study was conducted on clams from the Seomjin River-Gwangyang Bay, one of the major production area of marsh clam in Korea. As a result, we characterized Cytocrome C Oxidase subunit I (COI) sequences of the Corbicula. The 636 bp nucleotide sequences of COI have 98% homology among Corbicula species collected from 2 sites of Seomjin River-Gwangyang Bay. The phylogenetic analysis with 17 species of Corbicula indicated that most of the species collected from Seomjin River-Gwangyang Bay were brackish water clam (Corbicula japonica), and only one Asian clam (Corbicula fluminea). The evolutionary distance between C. japonica and C. fluminea was less than 0.003. Therefore, it was confirmed that C. japonica is phylogenetically closely related to C. fluminea. In 9 species of Cyrenidae, phylogenetic tree was classified into three lineages. These results will be used as an important data for an identification of clam species by providing genetic information for Corbicula species with a morphological diversity.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.520-524
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• 2023

Regalecus russellii, which spends most of its life in the deep sea, occasionally appears in coastal waters. However, the reasons for its appearance remain unclear. In Korea, R. russellii mainly appears along the eastern coastal waters, and most of them are caught in fishing gear, such as gill nets, or are stranded on the shore; nevertheless, the frequency of appearance is extremely low. Even if found, this species is often identified to be morphologically similar to Trachipterus ishikawae, and comprehensive analysis to identify the species through sample collection is limited. Consequently, information on the biological characteristics of R. russellii appearing in the coastal waters of Korea is scarce. Herein, the anatomical characteristics of R. russellii caught in a gill net off the Gangwon-do coast on March 14, 2023, were analyzed, and coastal water temperature was measured using an ocean buoy. Our results showed that the individual was male, its total length was 320 cm, body weight was 27.52 kg, body length was 26.62 cm, gonad weight was 619.45 g, and liver weight was 218.71 g. The stomach was full of euphausiids. The water temperature changed drastically at 15-30 m roughly a week before the R. russellii individual was caught, and the subsurface water temperature was lower than 10 ℃. Our findings provide baseline data to understand the ecological characteristics of R. russellii appearing along the eastern coast of the Korea.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.70-82
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• 2023

Recently, Korean government has introduced Multi Metric Indices (MMI) using various biocommunity information for aquatic ecosystem monitoring and ecosystem health assessment at the national level. MMI is a key tool in national ecosystem health assessment programs. The MMI consists of indices that respond to different target environmental factors, including environmental disturbance (e.g. nutrients, hydrological and hydraulic situation of site etc.). We used zooplankton community information collected from Korean lakes to estimate the availability of candidate zooplankton MMI indices that can be used to assess lake ecosystem health. First, we modified the candidate indices proposed by the U.S. EPA to suit Korean conditions. The modified indices were subjected to individual index suitability analysis, correlation analysis with environmental variables, and redundancy analysis among indices, and 19 indices were finally selected. Taxonomic diversity was suggested to be an important indicator for all three taxonomic groups (cladoceran, copepod, rotifer), on the other hand, the indices using biomass for large cladocerans and copepods, while the indices using abundance were suggested for small cladocerans and rotifers.