• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.669-676
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• 2017

To understand the relationship between environmental factors and phytoplankton community structures and why early outbreaks of Cochlodinium polykrikoides occur in the inner bay of Korea, short-term investigations were conducted at 17 stations in the eastern part of the South Sea of Korea, with sessions every two weeks from July 7 to August 24, 2016. The water temperature increased from $22.3^{\circ}C$ in the first survey to $28.4^{\circ}C$ in the fourth survey, which was a rise of about $6.01^{\circ}C$. Salinity was relatively high at Stns. 8 13 in the inner bay. In the first survey, rainfall of about 150 mm was observed, so nutrients were supplied at a high level and a high concentrate of Chl. a was observed. Cryptophyta (Crpytomonas spp.) represented 58.3 % of the community, followed by Bacillariophyta at 33.8 %. In particular, at Stn. 5, Dinophyta Prorocentrum spp. accounted for a very high percentage, 32.2 %. In the second survey, low phytoplankton populations were observed, and Bacillariophyta (Chaetoceros spp.) accounted for 61.0 %. At Stn. 4, Skeletonema spp. showed high populations but did not appear at other stations even at a low density. In the third and fourth surveys, phytoplankton populations were very low. Bacillariophyta represented 78.0 % in the third study and 73.3 % in the fourth. Interestingly, although the appearance of C. polykrikoides was investigated at the beginning of the red tide in the coastal area, they were not observed inshore, implying that the likelihood of inflow by the germination of resting cysts was low for the inner bay during this study period. In addition, environmental characteristics such as salinity and nutrient presence were significantly different between sampling stations due to the existence of a semi-closed bay in the southern sea, resulting in dominant phytoplankton species and community composition differing in these short-term investigations.

• Journal of Marine Life Science
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.62-69
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• 2017

In order to assess the potential environmental factors in the vicinity of a fish cage farm, we investigated the biotic and abiotic factors during a short-term period in summer 2016 in two inner stations of Tongyeong Obi. High water temperature on August 10^th was apparent among the full depth of up to 29℃, which might have been related to the abnormally high temperatures of large amounts of the Changjiang River discharge along the Tongyeong coast. The concentration of nitrate+nitrite, ammonium, phosphate, and silicate ranged from 0.08 to 5.11 μM, 0.08 to 34.62 μM, 0.01 to 1.15 μM, and 1.46 to 31.79 μM, respectively. The nutrients were mainly supplied by precipitation and leaching from the bottom sediments in the fish culture farm area. It was not retained for a long duration because of the phytoplankton consumption and diffusion by water currents. The chlorophyll a concentration varied from 0.49 ㎍ l^-1 to 7.39 ㎍ l^-1. At that time, Chaetoceros debilis, C. pseudocurvisetus, and Pseudo-nitzschia delicatissima were rapidly proliferated and reached the level of 4.74 × 10⁹ cells l^-1. In particular, the lowest dissolved oxygen was recorded at 4.52 ㎍ l^-1 at the bottom layer after bloom. Therefore, even though phytoplankton blooms in summer have frequently occurred in a fish culture farm area, the oxygen-deficient environments were not found in neither the surface nor bottom layers, which implied that the water masses might be well exchanged from the mouth of the northwest and southeast between Obi and Mireuk Island in the study area.