• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.100-110
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• 2005

We carried oui a study on the marine environment and distribution of phytoplankton community, such as chlorophyll a, species composition, dominant species and standing crops in the Northern East China Sea during early summer of 2004. According to the analysis of a T-S diagram, three characteristics of water masses were identified. We classified them into the coastal water mass, the cold water mass and the oceanic water mass. The first was characterized by the low temperature and the low salinity originated from China territory, the secondary was characterized by the low temperature, the low salinity and the high density originated from bottom cold water of Yellow Sea, and the third was done by the high temperature and salinity originated from Tsushima warm current. The internal discontinuous layer among them was farmed at the intermediate depth (about $5{\sim}30m$ layer). And the thermal front by upwelling region between the cold water mass and Tsushima warm current appeared in the central parts of the South Sea of Korea. The Phytoplankton community in the surface and stratified layers was a total of 44 species belonging to 26 genera. Dominant species were Prorocentrum triestinum, Scrippsiella trochoidea, Skeletonema costatum & Leptocylindrus mediterraneus. Standing crops of phytoplankton in the surface layer fluctuated between $0.3{\times}10^3$ cells/L and $10.8{\times}10^3$ cells/L. Diatoms appeared mainly in the Tsushima warm current regions, and flagellates occurred in the frontal zone and the low salinity regions where was the transfer areas of Chinese continental coastal waters. Chlorophyll a concentration by controlled phytoflagellate ratio in the South Sea of Korea was high values in the frontal zone and sub-surface layer. It was high concentration in the upwelling and coastal waters regions, but low concentration in the Tsushima warm current regions. The Chl-a maximum layers appeared in the thermochline depth or sub-surface layer lower than thermocline. The phytoplankton production in the South Sea of Korea was controlled by the expanded coastal waters of Chinese Continent which include a high concentrations of nutrients.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.355-370
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• 2020

We conducted a field survey to analyze the ecological structure and spatial distribution of microplankton (phytoplankton and ciliates) in relation to water masses at 21 stations on the surface and chlorophyll-a maximum layers (CML) in the Northern East China Sea (nECS; 32°-33°N; 124°00'-127°30'E) from August 3 to August 6, 2019. The results showed that the water masses were divided into Chinese Coastal Waters (CCW) and the Tsushima Warm Current (TWC). The CCW showed the environmental characteristics of high temperature and low salinity, and the TWC showed high temperature and high salinity. The characteristics of the phytoplankton community in the CCW showed various community structures related to the nutrients supplied from the large rivers of the Chinese continent. However, the TWC had simple community structures because it originated near the equator and moved northward. The standing crops of phytoplankton and ciliates were very high in the CCW but showed low at the TWC. In particular, from the higher standing crops of protozoa than plant plankton at the TWC, the energy flow at the lower tropic levels caused by the microbial loop that fed on heterotrophic bacteria played an important role in the production of resource organisms. In other words, the marine ecological structure of the nECS in summer could be estimated as a bottom-up system at the CCW and a top-down system at the TWC.