• Animal cells and systems
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.161-168
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• 2011

Siberian chipmunks, Tamias sibiricus, are one of several popular companion animals found in the pet shops of South Korea. At present, however, there have been no studies done in South Korea examining their origin even though they could be potential carriers of zoonotic diseases, and are a species of concern for efficient conservation and management strategies. Sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene (1140 bp) were determined to investigate the origin of Siberian chipmunks sold in four South Korean pet shops through comparison with sequence data from animals of known locality. Nine Siberian chipmunks were collected from pet shops in South Korea, which resulted in nine haplotypes. One (AR) of these coincided with the haplotype previously described. Phylogenetic and network analyses using 53 haplotypes including 45 haplotypes from GenBank showed three phylogenetic groups in South Korea, almost concordant to locality, designated as northern, central, and southern parts as described in a previous study. Of the nine individuals examined from the pet shops, eight were clustered into the northern phylogroup but one (cgrb9153) was grouped with the southern phylogroup, implying that at least the Siberian chipmunks examined in this study did not originate from other countries. It is likely that most individuals sold in the pet shops of Seoul were caught in the wild in Gyeonggi-do and Gangwon-do, or are maternal descendants of captive-bred individuals originating from the northern part of South Korea. It is recommended that conservation and management units of Korean chipmunks should be examined in further detail.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.112-118
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to analyze endangered species laws and systems in China from the viewpoint of the importance of protecting biodiversity and to propose suggestions for existing wildlife protection laws in China to improve efficacy. Since the People's Republic of China Wildlife Protection Act was promulgated and enforced in 1988, China has found that urgent amendments are necessary because of neglected management of the act. The content of the Wildlife Protection Act of China is not only monotonous and unsystematic, but also needs modification and supplementation because it is pre-modern and does not meet current demands. In comparison with other countries, the purpose of China's legislation, supervision system, scope of protection and public participation system differ. China's Wildlife Protection Act is also hindered by confusion in the legislative protection system, lack of an administrative compensation system, difficulties in implementation, deterioration of legal efficiency, lack of content and operations, and lack of a list of species that should be is protected. This paper proposes measures for improvement to solve this confusion in the legislative system for the endangered species protection law to establish a legal system suitable for the current situation in China.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.223-227
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• 2007

Crop loss and damage by wildlife are becoming more serious to residents inside and around National Parks of Korea annually. It could be caused by small size of Parks, which is couples of ten $km^2$ only, and more than a third of total parks' areas are belonging to privates. Wild boar (Sus scrofa) is one of the most harmful pests in nationwide. Treading down crop field using as bedding or resting site are major damaged types and foraging behavior is following. Besides of boars, Korean water deer (Hydropotes inermis), racoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides), and badger (Meles meles) are another serious pests. Mainly, farm products planted in upland, such as corns, sweet potatoes, cabbages, etc. are harmed easily, a rate reaches up to 76.9% of whole losses. 92.4% (n=187) of interviewees, who are mostly seniors, cultivate small crop fields smaller than 1 ha. Crop damage would be started from June to late November, time differences are happened due to latitude, climate condition, and crop differences of National Parks. Dusting animal repellents are easier and widespread methods to prevent animal foraging to crop fields and installing noisy makers using gun powder and setting up scarecrows are traditional methods for repelling animals. Nevertheless, effects of these self-defence are turned out to be useful soon after labors done only. Since legal compensation for crop damages by wildlife are not prepared systematically so far, crop loss are rarely reported to local government by most farmers. Systematic and objective methods for quantifying of crop loss by wildlife and population managements system should be offered urgently to well-managed animals habitat and residents' living inside National Parks.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.11-23
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to identify the ecological characteristics and biological interactions between species of the abandoned rice paddy field in mountainous areas and to suggest a management strategy for stable food chain formation and biodiversity enhancement. The study site is located in Uldae wetland of Songchu district Bukhansan National Park, site characteristics and biological habitat characteristics were identified through site survey and literature survey. With regard to physical environment, among geographical features, the Uldae Wetland and the neighborhood inside the basin was a gently sloping area($5{\sim}15^{\circ}$). And 64.0% of basin faced the north. With regard to water environment, the Uldae Wetland was wetland of rainfed paddy field depending on precipitation and the system of stream flowing into the wetland from valley. According to the results of examining flora in plant ecology, in general, they were herbaceous wetland species. 88.6% of existing plants inside the Uldae Wetland basin was a forest in the mountain. And Quercus spp. community and Pinus densiflora community accounted for 64.6% of that, and was dominant. Except for that, Salix koreensis community was distributed. The existing vegetation of Uldae Wetland inhabited wetland species and terrestrialization indicator species, and it was thought that partial terrestrialization inside the Uldae Wetland was in progress after the discontinuation of paddy cultivation, such as the expansion of Salix koreensis distribution area. In the status of appearing faunae in the Uldae Wetland with regard to wildbirds of appearing principal species, The Uldae wetland was based on a abandoned rice paddy field various wildlife, and was a wildlife feeding, spawning, and resting place. The water environment was an important factor in maintaining the wetland living creatures function, habitat of waterbirds and benthic macroinvertebrates, amphibians and odonate are spawning ground and habitat, it was affecting the vegetation ecosystem based on wetlands. In order to maintain the diversity of wildlife, it was important to maintain smooth water supply and water level. A stable food chain will be formed and the Uldae wetland biodiversity will be abundant by establishing the relationship between the species of Uldae wetland, which is abandoned rice paddy field, and the habitat environment favored by species belonging to the ecosystem stepwise linkage. The ecological characteristics of the Uldae wetlands and the relation between the species were analyzed and the environmental conditions were reflected in the planning and management plan of Uldae wetland ecology.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.93-108
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• 2014

The inventory list of wildlife species inhabiting or distributing in Gyeonggi Province was made by compiling species data from precedent surveys, 10 national level nature surveys, 1 survey that Gyeonggi-do conducted, and 46 local surveys presented in scientific journals. Total 2,913 wildlife species including 2,041 vascular plants, 39 mammals, 304 birds, 34 herptiles, 145 fish, and 350 benthic macro-invertebrates were listed in the inventory. It explains 47% of nationwide total species in vascular plants, 31.5% in mammals, 58.2% in birds, 65.4% in herptiles, 12.2% in fish. The total number of important species including endangered species, national monuments, national red lists, etc. was 628 species, accounting for 21.6% of all listed species in Gyeonggi Province. More than 90% of endangered bird species, almost half of endangered fish and herptile species were found in Gyeonggi Province. In particular, abundant bird diversity and inhabitation of many endangered bird species were identified in Gyeonggi Province. Species diversity was greater in the northern area adjacent to the Demilitarized Zone and the eastern forest area. The distribution of the important species such as national endangered species was more distinct in these areas, especially in Gapyeong and Yeoncheon Counties. The inventory list compiled in this study implicates the level of management for biological resources and can provide information for policy decisions regarding new survey sites, protection management of specific species and areas, management practices by spatial characteristics. It should be more compiled and updated with survey data to be utilized as basic indices for local biodiversity strategies and management of biological resources.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.385-389
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• 2019

Knowledge of abundance, or population size, is fundamental in wildlife conservation and management. Camera-trapping, in combination with capture-recapture methods, has been extensively applied to estimate abundance and density of individually identifiable animals due to the advantages of being non-invasive, effective to survey wide-ranging, elusive, or nocturnal species, operating in inhospitable environment, and taking low labor. We assessed the possibility of using coat patterns from images to identify an individual leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis), a Class II endangered species in South Korea. We analyzed leopard cat images taken from Digital Single-Lense Relfex camera (high resolution, 18Mpxl) and camera traps (low resolution, 3.1Mpxl) using HotSpotter, an image matching algorithm. HotSpotter accurately top-ranked an image of the same individual leopard cat with the reference leopard cat image 100% by matching facial and ventral parts. This confirms that facial and ventral fur patterns of the Amur leopard cat are good matching points to be used reliably to identify an individual. We anticipate that the study results will be useful to researchers interested in studying behavior or population parameter estimates of Amur leopard cats based on capture-recapture models.

• Proceedings of the National Institute of Ecology of the Republic of Korea
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.67-72
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• 2022

Ecological research relies on the interpretation of large amounts of visual data obtained from extensive wildlife surveys, but such large-scale image interpretation is costly and time-consuming. Using an artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning model, especially convolution neural networks (CNN), it is possible to streamline these manual tasks on image information and to protect wildlife and record and predict behavior. Ecological research using deep-learning-based object recognition technology includes various research purposes such as identifying, detecting, and identifying species of wild animals, and identification of the location of poachers in real-time. These advances in the application of AI technology can enable efficient management of endangered wildlife, animal detection in various environments, and real-time analysis of image information collected by unmanned aerial vehicles. Furthermore, the need for school education and social use on biodiversity and environmental issues using AI is raised. School education and citizen science related to ecological activities using AI technology can enhance environmental awareness, and strengthen more knowledge and problem-solving skills in science and research processes. Under these prospects, in this paper, we compare the results of our early 2013 study, which automatically identified African cichlid fish species using photographic data of them, with the results of reanalysis by CNN deep learning method. By using PyTorch and PyTorch Lightning frameworks, we achieve an accuracy of 82.54% and an F1-score of 0.77 with minimal programming and data preprocessing effort. This is a significant improvement over the previous our machine learning methods, which required heavy feature engineering costs and had 78% accuracy.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.10-17
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• 2013

History of Instream Flow Incremental Methodology (IFIM) Following the large reservoir and water development era of the mid-twentieth century in North America, resource agencies became concerned over the loss of many miles of riverine fish and wildlife resources in the arid western United States. Consequently, several western states began issuing rules for protecting existing stream resources from future depletions caused by accelerated water development. Many assessment methods appeared during the 1960's and early 1970's. These techniques were based on hydrologic analysis of the water supply and hydraulic considerations of critical stream channel segments, coupled with empirical observations of habitat quality and an understanding of riverine fish ecology. Following enactment of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1970, attention was shifted from minimum flows to the evaluation of alternative designs and operations of federally funded water projects. Methods capable of quantifying the effect of incremental changes in stream flow to evaluate a series of possible alternative development schemes were needed. This need led to the development of habitat versus discharge functions developed from life stage-specific relations for selected species, that is, fish passage, spawning, and rearing habitat versus flow for trout or salmon. During the late 1970's and early 1980's, an era of small hydropower development began. Hundreds of proposed hydropower sites in the Pacific Northwest and New England regions of the United States came under intensive examination by state and federal fishery management interests. During this transition period from evaluating large federal reservoirs to evaluating license applications for small hydropower, the Instream Flow Incremental Methodology (IFIM) was developed under the guidance of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).

• Proceedings of the Korea Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry Conference
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• 2006.06b
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• pp.305-309
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• 2006

This paper presents and illustrates the application of a growth and yield model that supports both forest and mill side volume and value estimates. Traditional forest stand growth and yield models represent the forest landowner view of yield and economics. Predicted yields are estimates of what one would expect from a procurement cruise, and current stumpage prices are applied to investigate optimum management strategies. Optimum management regimes and rotation ages obtained from the forest side view are unlikely to be economically optimal when viewed from the mill side. The actual distribution of recoverable manufactured product and its value are highly dependent on mill technologies and configurations. Overcoming this limitation of growth and yield computer models necessitates the ability to predict and price the expected manufactured distribution of lumber, lineal meters of veneer, and tonnes of air dried pulp fiber yield. With these embedded models, users of the yield simulator can evaluate the economics of possible/feasible management regimes from both the forest and mill business sides. The simulator is a forest side model that has been modified to produce estimates of manufactured product yields by embedding models for 1) pulpwood chip size class distribution and pulp yield for any kappa number (Schultz and Matney, 2002), 2) a lumber yield and pricing model based on the Best Opening Face model developed by the USDA Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory (Lewis, 1985a and Lewis, 1985b), and 3) a lineal meter veneer model derived from peeler block tests. While the model is strictly applicable to planted loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) on cutover site-prepared land in the United States (US) Gulf South, the model and computer program are adaptable to any region and forest type.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2023

To understand the health conditions and growth patterns of forest estate for environmental resilience and climate change mitigation, assessment of structure and species diversity is paramount. This study aimed at assessing the structure, alpha, and beta diversities of tree species in three ecological zones in Taraba, Nigeria for management purposes. In recent time, no research has been reported on the structure and beta diversity of the study areas. A systematic sampling design was used for data collection. Five sample plots of 50×50 m were laid in each of the six natural forest areas. The result showed a mean DBH (42.5 cm) and a tree height (15.0 m) from the forests. The forests have a structure of an inverse "J-shape," which is typical of natural forests in the tropics. The southern Guinea savanna zone had the highest mean Shannon-Weiner diversity index (2.8). The least beta diversity index (0.02) was between Baissa and Jen Gininya forest areas. Baissa and Bakin Dutse Protected Forest Areas (PFAs) contained 76.5% of the tree species. There is a high chance of all tree species to be found in these 2 forest areas. Proximity to a location influences how similar two tree species are, according to the least beta diversity index (0.02) recorded. The Federal Government's method of management for the forest, known as Gashaka Gumti National Park, may be responsible for the high beta diversity index in the Montane ecozone. Therefore, it should be strongly encouraged to practice strict oversight of natural areas, as their contributions to reducing climate change in Taraba State, Nigeria, cannot be overstated.