• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.781-792
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• 2020

Mine tailings, which are inevitably formed by the development of manganese nodules, manganese crusts, and hydrothermal seafloor deposits, have attracted attention because of their quantity and potential toxicity. However, there is a lack of data on the quantity of mine tailings being generated, their physicochemical properties, and their effects as environmental hazards and on marine ecosystems in general. The importance of treating mine tailings in an environmentally friendly manner has been recognized recently and related reduction/treatment methods are being considered. In the case of deep-sea mineral resource development, if mine tailings cannot be treated aboard a ship, the issue becomes one of the cost of transporting them to land and solving the problem of environmental pollution there. Therefore, the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology conducted research on the harmfulness of mine tailings, their effect on marine ecosystem, the diffusion model of contaminated particles, and candidate purification treatment technologies based on five representative controlling factors: 1) effects of pollution /on the environment, 2) effects of environmental/ biological hazards, 3) diffusion of particles, 4) mineral dressings, and 5) reducing/processing mine tailings. The results of this study can provide a basis for minimizing environmental problems by providing scientific evidences of the environmental effects of mine tailings. In addition, it is also expected that these results could be applied to the treatment of pollutants of different origins and at land-based mining waste sites.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.248-257
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• 2019

In this study, we isolated about 70 bacterial strains from terrestrial and marine environments in Jeju island, and finally, total 21 strains were obtained based on the 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequence analysis. These isolated strains were classified into 16 genera of 5 classes and were identified as an unrecorded species in the Republic of Korea. As a result of the substrate utilization and capability for polymer degradation, the physiological phenotypes for acid resistance and halophilic bacteria were observed to be distinct from each other, except for some acid resistance strains. This study might provide basic information on utilization for indigenous microorganisms.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.263-276
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• 2021

Marine benthic organisms have been used as the indicators for the environment assessment and recently considered as a very important component in the biodiversity and ecosystem restoration. In Korean waters, the quantitative data on marine benthos was used as one of major components for the marine pollution assessment for 50 years since 1970s. The species identification which is an important factor for the quantitative biological data was mainly performed by the marine benthic ecologists. This leads to the deterioration of the data quality on marine benthos from the misidentication of major taxonomic groups due to the lack of taxonomic expertise in Korea. This taxonomic problem has not been solved until now and remains in most data from national research projects on the marine ecosystems in Korean waters. Here we introduce the quality assurance and control (QA/QC) system for the marine biological data in UK, that is, NMBAQC (Northeast Atlantic Marine Biological Analytic and Quality Control) Scheme which has been performed by private companies to solve similar species identification problems in UK. This scheme asks for all marine laboratories which want to participate to any national monitoring programs in UK to keep their identification potency at high level by the internal quality assurance systems and provides a series of taxonomic workshops and literature to increase their capability. They also performs the external quality control for the marine laboratories by performing the Ring Test using standard specimens on various faunal groups. In the case of Korea, there are few taxonomic expertise in two existing national institutions and so they can't solve the taxonomic problems in marine benthic fauna data. We would like to provide a few necessary suggestions to solve the taxonomic problems in Korean marine biological data in short-terms and long-terms: (1) the identification of all dominant species in marine biological data should be confirmed by taxonomic expertise, (2) all the national research programs should include taxonomic experts, and (3) establishing a private company, like the Korea marine organism identification association (KMOIA), which can perform the QA/QC system on the marine organisms and support all Korean marine laboratories by providing taxonomic literature and species identification workshops to enhance their potency. The last suggestion needs more efforts and time for the establishment of that taxonomic company by gathering the detailed contents and related opinions from diverse stakeholders in Korea.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.248-262
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• 2021

Marine planktonic ciliates include two major groups, loricated tintinnids and naked oligotrichs. The study of marine ciliate plankton in Korea began with taxonomic efforts on tintinnids based on the morphology of lorica, a vase-shaped shell. Despite polymorphism in the lorica, it is utilized as a key characteristic in identification of tintinnid species. However, oligotrichs have been studied only recently in Korea due to challenges associated with the observation of ciliary arrangements and the technical development for cell staining. Species diversity and phylogenetic classification of the ciliates have been informed by recent advances in morphological and molecular analyses. Illustrations of the planktonic ciliate in Korea have been published on the basis of taxonomic data of tintinnids and oligotrichs. Planktonic ciliates acting as the major consumers of pico- and nanoplankton as well as the prey of mesozooplankton, has been monitored by spatial and temporal investigations in Korean coastal waters. A practical approach addressing the limitations and potential of marine ciliate studies in Korea is proposed here to improve the data quality of planktonic ciliates, providing an enhanced basis for quality control of ciliate monitoring.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.328-335
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• 2009

Phase variance of the acoustic signals has to be investigated with the research of the medium, because the phase of the acoustic signals carries the information of the medium. The phase compensation of the received signals is required for the signal processing of SAS (Synthetic Aperture Sonar) and underwater communication. In this paper, the phase variance of the acoustic signals was studied depending on the micro-scale-turbulence of ocean. The turbulence strength of the locally isotropic and homogeneous turbulence was calculated, and the phase variance affected by the turbulence strength was computed along the ray paths. The CTD and ADCP data were acquired from a buoy system near the Mukho port in the East Sea of Korea and the ray paths were calculated by the Bellhop algorithm. As a result, the turbulence strength was mainly determined by the variation of temperature and flow speed, changing the phase variance of the received signals. Hence, we thought the phase variance should be considered in the sonar operating system.

• Journal of Marine Life Science
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.22-32
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• 2024

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of external biologger attachment methods on the blood parameters and attachment efficiency of spotted sea bass Lateolabrax maculatus (mean body weight 2630.8 g). The fish were tagged using four different external attachment methods with dummy biologgers: no attachment (control), anchor attachment (AA), monofilament attachment (MA), and silicon tube attachment (SA), each with triplicates. Blood indices and biologger attachment efficiency were assessed on days 1, 7, 14, 28, 56, and 84 after attachment. The concentrations of hematocrit, Na⁺, Cl^-, glutamic pyruvic transaminase and total protein, and the activity of superoxide dismutase in blood were not affected by the external attachment method of biologger. The concentrations of glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (day 1 of attachment), hemoglobin (day 56) and total cholesterol (day 56 and 84) in AA group, the concentrations of glucose and cortisol (day 14) and total cholesterol (day 84) in MA group showed significantly higher than those of control (p<0.05). During the experiment period, the SA group had no differences from the control in all blood properties. The biologger attachment efficiencies of the AA, MA, and SA groups after 84 days were 0.0%, 33.3%, and 100.0%, respectively. These results indicate that the optimum external biologger attachment method under our experimental conditions is SA type.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.25-31
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• 2012

The frequency and abundance of jellyfish, presumably related with climate change, fisheries overexploitation, marine pollution including land reclamation and dyke construction, are increasing worldwide. This feature has attracted interest and concerns from general public and public officials, and government is seeking how the damages could be prevented or reduced down. Korean government, having recent huge blooms of jellyfish, engaged in reducing and/or countermeasuring jellyfish damages. Korean research themes include ecology and physiology of blooming jellyfish species, understanding of the blooming mechanism, and focus on the eradication of blooming jellyfish, without governmental integrative management plan. EU is undertaking scientific projects focused on understanding of the mechanism and control of jellyfish blooms, and establishment of an integrative management. In USA, government has established the code on jellyfish management for conserving and protecting the fish and shellfish resources and one of its department is specially assigned to monitor jellyfish appearance, undertake research, and prepare management plan. Japan also assigned a department and research institute for jellyfish research. Their main interest is to predict jellyfish drifting and mass bloom. Compared to Korea, USA, EU and Japan emphasize integrative management that includes ecological understanding, public education and outreaches, communication and control, if possible, of jellyfish blooms, based on scientific data. We suggest then, 1) establishment of an integrative scientific system consisting of policy and scientific experts to prepare inter-ministrial integrative management plan to effectively combat jellyfish blooms and to maximize the scientific result; 2) concept change from harmful to exploitable marine animal in policy making and research; and 3) active education and information service for people. We expect that these suggestions can be useful for jellyfish management and policy making on another harmful marine organisms.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.483-494
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• 2019

From the cosmopolitan superiority of the as the first world map completed in 1402 with surprisingly detailed images and contents on the Africa Continent it is reasonable to think that the Koreans in early fifteen century were already with highly up-to-date perspectives on the universe and world history and cultures. However, some 490 year later the first phytohydrographic plankton investigation in the neritic seas of Korea was performed by a Japanese company with sampling points covering from Tokyo Bay through Jeju neritic waters to Shanghai estuary, which was in turn preceded by the first oceanographic investigation other than the simple mapping Koreans seas by using two French sailboats. The first phytohydrographic plankton investigation in Korean seas were behind the world first oceanic plankton exploration, the German Plankton Expedition, by 25 years. Starting from the oceanographic investigation including phytohydrographic samplings in the whole Yellow Sea in 1915 the full-scale phytohydrographic plankton studies were tried in Korean seas which is well represented by the 1921 oceanographic investigation on the whole East Sea with 80 sampling stations. In 1932 two separate oceanographic investigations followed, one in the East Sea where 78 stations from Busan to southern Sakhalin Island were simultaneously visited by 50 research vessels for the physical, chemical, and biological oceanographic studies, and the other one in southern coast and western East Sea of Korea where ocean current observation as well as plankton sampling were made in 120 stations to understand the relationship between the ocean current and plankton distribution in the region. In 1933-1934 more intensified investigations on phytohydrography were carried out particularly in the East Sea as an integral part of the basic marine ecosystem studies for the Myeong-Tae (Alaska Pollock) resources estimation. Scientists' attitude for the marine investigation and research activities seemed to be almost unchanging even to the year 1943, which could be reflected by the fact that publication of the results from the investigations performed in 1945 were finally done in 1967 at Tokyo. Some 70 years later from the mid-twenty century we might be standing on the turning-point of "need to be prepared" for the new era of changing paradigm by reviewing, archiving, and analyzing the prior information big data from the previous ocean observation and biohydrographic investigations. At the same time each professional societies for the above mentioned sciences might trigger a continuous project to reorganize and update the records on related bibliography and its history every 30 years.

• Korean Journal of Ichthyology
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.217-225
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• 2021

The family Platycephalidae is a taxonomic group of economically important demersal flathead fishes that predominantly occupy tropical or temperate estuaries and coastal environments of the Indo-Pacific oceans and the Mediterranean Sea. In this study, we for the first time analyzed the complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) of the flathead Platycephalus cultellatus Richardson, 1846 from Vietnam by Next Generation Sequencing method. Its mitogenome was 16,641 bp in total length, comprising 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), two ribosomal RNA genes, and 22 transfer RNA genes. The gene composition and order of the mitogenome were identical to those of typical vertebrates. The phylogenetic trees were reconstructed based on the concatenated nucleotide sequence matrix of 13 PCGs and the partial sequence of a DNA barcoding marker, cox1 in order to determine its molecular phylogenetic position among the order Scorpaeniformes. The phylogenetic result revealed that P. cultellatus formed a monophyletic group with species belonging to the same family and consistently clustered with one nominal species, P. indicus, and two Platycephalus sp. specimens. Besides, the cox1 tree confirmed the taxonomic validity of our specimen by forming a monophyletic clade with its conspecific specimens. The mitogenome of P. cultellatus analyzed in this study will contribute valuable information for further study on taxonomy and phylogeny of flatheads.