• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.331-338
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• 2022

The high latitude scleractinian coral Alveopora japonica Eguchi, 1965 occurs in high density in the shallow rocky subtidal in Jeju Island, forming coral carpets. Despite its ecological role providing a unique habitat for other benthic organisms, the benthic fauna associated with the A. japonica coral carpet is poorly known. To identify fauna associated with the coral carpet, we explored three sites dominated by A. japonica and one control site on northwestern Jeju Island in May 2013. Using SCUBA, we collected A. japonica and the epibenthic mega-fauna associated with the colonies in 1×1 m² and identified them to the species level. At a depth of 10 to 15 m, A. japonica colonies heavily covered the seafloor, forming a layer called a coral carpet, with a density of 94 (Keumneung-ri), 133 (Biyangdo), and 155 (Gwidok-ri) colonies/m². Thirty-four molluscan species were identified from the four sites, including 20 bivalves and 14 gastropods. The coral carpets were enriched with sessile bivalves compared to the control site, as we identified twenty bivalve and eight gastropod species from the coral carpets. Most bivalve species associated with the coral carpets had tropical-subtropical affinities, while gastropods were mainly subtropical and subtropical-low boreal species. Leiosolenus lischkei M. Huber, 2010, in the family Mytilidae and Barbatia steamsi (Pilsbry, 1895), in the family Arcidae, were the two most abundant bivalve species in the coral carpet, L. lischkei being a borer, and B. stearnsi a nestler. The tropical to subtropical Pacific star shell Astralium haematragum (Menke, 1829)was the most abundant gastropod at the study sites. The bivalves and gastropods associated with the coral carpet were small-sized juveniles or sub-adults, suggesting that the coral carpet provides a micro-habitat for the bivalves and gastropods.

• Journal of Marine Bioscience and Biotechnology
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2007

Coral reefs are among the most dynamic and various ecosystems on tropical ecosystem. They provide a large number of important ecosystem services. Despite their importance, they appear to be one of the most susceptible marine ecosystems. Dramatic decreasing of coral reefs has been reported from every part of the world. Indonesia contains 18% of coral reefs of world's total. Unfortunately the status of coral reefs in Indonesia is already in critical and poor condition. Coral reefs communities in Indonesia are subjected to a variety of environmental disturbance. Threats to Indonesia's coral reefs resources can be divided into two main types: anthropogenic and natural disturbances. The major anthropogenic disturbances on coral reefs in Indonesia are destructive fishing, pollution, coastal development, mining and harvesting live fish and coral, tourism. The natural disturbances such as cyclones, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunami and predator also contribute to coral reefs destruction in Indonesia. In my paper I tried to compare between natural and anthropogenic disturbances on coral reefs in Indonesia and raised these questions: (i) how the natural disturbances differ from anthropogenic area (ii) which type of disturbances has caused the greatest impact on coral reef ecosystem. My finding is that both of anthropogenic and natural disturbances give major impact on coral reefs in Indonesia. The important issue here is coral reef resilience could be disturbed by synergistic effects between various anthropogenic and natural disturbances. This phenomenon has significant conservation and management implication. The appropriate management should be conducted to protect coral reefs ecosystem in Indonesia. Mangrove management will succeed only when local people are involved and get sustainable benefits from mangrove ecosystem. Community based management and Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) are type of management that can be applied on coral reef ecosystems in Indonesia.

• Molecular & Cellular Toxicology
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.170-175
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• 2006

The extensive isolation of genes responsive to stressful conditions from a soft coral Scleronephthya gracillimum was described. Soft coral colonies were exposed to thermal and chemical stressors to induce the expression of stress related genes. Differentially expressed genes by natural or anthropogenic stressors were identified by construction of standard and stress exposed-paired subtractive cDNA library. Thirty-two and thirty-seven kinds of candidate genes were identified from thermal or benzo[a]pyrene stress exposed group, respectively, which are associated with cell cycle, cell signaling, transcription, translation, protein metabolism, and other cellular functions. The expected function of each gene was described. The isolated and identified differentially expressed genes have a great potential to identify environmental stressors in global environmental changes and could act as molecular biomarkers for biological responses against environmental changes. Finally, it may open a new paradigm on soft coral health assessment.

• Journal of Marine Life Science
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.22-28
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• 2019

The bacterial diversity of an Antarctic hard coral, Errina fissurata, was examined by isolating bacterial colonies from crushed coral tissue and by sequencing their 16S rRNA gene. From the analyzed results, the bacteria were classified as Actinobacteria (56%), Firmicutes (35%) and Proteobacteria (9%). The thirty-four isolates were cultured in liquid media at different temperatures and their growth was assessed over time. The majority of the isolates displayed their highest growth rate at 25℃ during the first three days of cultivation, even though the coral was from a cold environment. Nevertheless, strains showing their highest growth rate at low temperatures (15℃ and 4℃) were also found. This study reports the composition of an Antarctic hard coral-associated culturable bacterial community and their growth behavior at different temperatures.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.235-247
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• 2022

A marine protected area (MPA) is a spatially designated section of the ocean where the biodiversity is high. Munseom MPA has a unique underwater landscape including soft coral, subtropical fish, and benthos, attracting many scuba divers. This paper intends to evaluate the willingness-to-pay (WTP) for the scuba diving management policy in the Munseom MPA. As a stated preference valuation method, a choice experiment was applied to assess divers' preferences with economic values for the policy. The attributes used in the study included zoning (temporal closure), conservation education, daily permit, soft coral area, and diving fee. We collected 333 questionnaires through online and field surveys and used 296 after excluding incomplete responses for the final data analysis. Study results show that a six-month closure, a decrease in soft coral habitat, and the diving fee were statistically significant. A positive coefficient with regard to the six-month closure variable indicates that divers preferred the policy, and the marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) was estimated to be KRW 8,637 per person per dive. The aggregate WTP of KRW 233 million was obtained by multiplying the MWTP by the number of visiting divers per year. When comparing the levels of recreation specialization, more skilled divers preferred the management option. The results of this study will help predict the priority of management measures and the levels of acceptability among divers when diving management is implemented in Korea in the future. This study suggests that marine environmental policies need to consider divers as one of the important stakeholders for marine conservation.

• Proceedings of KOSOMES biannual meeting
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• 2017.11a
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• pp.72-72
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• 2017

• ALGAE
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.281-288
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• 2013

Photosynthetic carbon fixation regulates air-sea $CO_2$ fluxes in the waters of coral reefs. However, little has been documented on the effects of solar UV radiation (UVR, 280-400 nm) upon photosynthetic behaviors of phytoplankton dwelling in these ecosystems. In order to evaluate the aforesaid, surface dwelling tropical coral reef phytoplankton assemblages collected from the South China Sea were exposed to solar radiation (i.e., photosynthetically active radiation [PAR] + UV radiation A [UVA] + UV radiation B [UVB], 280-700 nm; PAR + UVA, 320-700 nm; and PAR, 400-700 nm) under static or simulated-mixing conditions. Under the static condition, UVA and UVB significantly reduced the carbon fixation with the maximum of 22.4 and 15.3%, respectively; while lower UVR-related photosynthetic inhibition was observed in case of phytoplankton samples being subjected to mixing. At a moderate level of mixing (i.e., circulation time 80 min), the UVA and UVB caused inhibition were lowered by 52.1 and 79.6%, respectively. Based on this it could be stated that vertical mixing induced by winds and/or tides in the natural environments could reduce the inhibitory effect of solar UVR on phytoplankton productivity in the coral reefs water.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.193-199
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• 1999

Fifty-eight strains showing different colony morphological characteristics on various media were isolated from marine coral (Plexauridae sp.) and ambient seawater near Mun-Sum, Cheju-Island in 1998. Bacterial diversity was studies by phylogenetic analysis of the partial 16S rRNA gene sequences. All isolates representing the bacterial domain included affiliates of the high G+C (59%) and los G+C (3%) subdivision of Gram positive bacteria, and the alpha (33%) and gamma (5%) subdivision of the Proteobacteria. The 16S rDNA sequence similarity of the isolates was in the 88.3 to 100% range (average, 95.6%) to reported sequence data. In the comparison of the isolates from marine coarl and ambient seawater, more diverse groups belonging to ${\alpha}$-Proteobacteria were preferentially obtained from seawater.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.101-111
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• 2018

The Korean government has been trying to conserve a marine ecosystem that has been shifting due to climate change. As part of this effort, the government designated seventy-seven marine species that have been disappearing and deserve to be protected as endangered managing them specially. To generate basic data to guide policy for these endangered species, their value must be measured. OOf the species declared endangered, coral is particularly threatened by climate change, and its management is important. Accordingly, understanding the potential value of reefs, can be an effective way of proving the benefits of continuous management to decision makers and the general public alike. To this end, we have applied the contingent valuation method (CVM), an economic technique of for valuing a environmental and non-market goods such as a coral reef. A national face-to-face survey of 1,000 randomly selected households was conducted in order to determine the public's willingness to pay (WTP) for conserving coral reefs. A one-and-one-half-bound (OOHB) model was adopted to interpret WTP responses, and a spike model was employed to deal with zero WTP responses. The results show that the conservation value of a coral reef can be estimated at 3,016 won per household per year, statistically significant at the 1 % level. Expanding values to the national population gives an annual value of 58.9 billion won. We can conclude that the public is willing to pay a significant amount to conserve coral reefs.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.205-209
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• 2005

A rapid, simple and efficient method to extract RNA from the adult polyps of a soft coral, marine cnidarian, Scleronephthya gracillimum $(K\ddot{u}kenthal)$; was developed in this study. The highest yield and purity of RNA was obtained with the lysis solution containing 35 mM EDTA, 0.7 M LiCl, 7.0% SDS, and 200 mM Tris-Cl (pH 9.0). Approximately $40{\mu}g$ of total RNA was extracted from 200 mg of liquid nitrogen-pulverized polyp tissue. The ratio of absorbance at 260 nm and 280 nm ranged from 1.8 to 2.0. The results of the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RTPCR) with ${\beta}-actin$ gene specific primers and Northern blot analysis using the same gene probe revealed that the RNA extracted by our method had high quality, and was sufficient for subsequent molecular biological analyses. This method was effective for RNA extraction from other soft coral species which belong to the genus Dendronephthya.