• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.155-166
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• 2007

We carried out a study on the marine environment, such as water temperature, salinity, density and chlorophyll ${\alpha}$, and the distribution of phytoplankton community, such as species composition, dominant species and standing crops in the Southwestern Sea of Korea during early summer 2005. According to the analysis of a T-S diagram, three characteristics of water masses were identified. We classified them into Korean and Chinese coastal water, the cold water and the oceanic water. The first was characterized by high temperature and low salinity in the surface layer influenced by river run offs from China and Korea, the second by low temperature and salinity in bottom layer originated from the bottom cold water of the Yellow Sea, and the third by high temperature and high salinity influenced by Tsushima warm currents. The internal discontinuous layer among them was formed at the intermediate depth (about $10{\sim}20\;m$ layer). And the thermal front appeared in the central parts between Tsushima warm currents and Korean and Chinese coastal waters in the Southwestern Sea of Korea. Chlorophyll ${\alpha}$ concentration was high values in the Korean coastal waters and sub-surface layers. But It was low concentration in the Tsushima warm currents regions. The $Chl-{\alpha}$ maximum layers appeared in the sub-surface layer below thermocline. The phytoplankton community in the surface and stratified layers was composed of a total of 40 species belonging to 26 genera. Dominant species were 2 diatoms, Paralia sulcata, Skeletonema costatum and a dinoflagellate, Scripsiella trochoidea. Standing crops of phytoplankton in the surface layer were very low with cell density ranging from 5 to $3.8\;{\times}\;10^3\;cells/L$. Diatoms were controlled by the expanded low salinity coastal waters of the low salinity with high concentrations of nutrients. Otherwise phytoflagellates were dominant in the high temperature regions where the Tsushima warm currents approches the Southwestern Sea of Korea in early summer.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.559-572
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• 2021

A survey was conducted to analyze water masses and spatial distributions of phytoplankton communities at 15 stations on the surface and chlorophyll a maximum layers (CML) in the western South Sea of Korea from September 8 to 9, 2021. As a result, water masses were classified into Coastal Waters (CW) with relatively low salinity, the Tsushima Warm Current (TWC) with high water temperature and high salinity, and mixed waters (MW) showing a mixture of these two water masses. Turbidity showed high concentration in both the surface and CML. The chlorophyll a concentration was as low as 0.90±0.43 ㎍ L^-1 in the surface, more than 1.1 ㎍ L^-1 in CW, around 1.0 ㎍ L^-1 in MW, and less than 0.5 ㎍ L^-1 in the TWC. CML was 1.64±0.54 ㎍ L^-1. Regarding species composition of phytoplankton communities, there were 57 species in 31 genera(diatoms, 57.8%; dinoflagellates, 35.1%; and other phytoflagellates, 7.1%). The phytoplankton standing crop had 4.6±7.6 cells mL^-1 in the surface, more than 30 cells mL^-1 in the CW, 2-5 cells mL^-1 in the MW, and less than 2 cells mL^-1 in the TWC. CML was slightly higher than the surface with a variation of 5.7±8.4 cells mL^-1. Dominant species were found to be Rhizosolenia flagilissima f. flagilissima, Skeletonema costatum-ls, and Nitzschia sp./ small size in the surface. For the CML Rh. flagilisima f. flagilissima showed a dominance of 12.0%. For the surface, the diversity variation was 2.36±0.40, which was high for TWC but low for MW. For CML, the diversity variation was 2.29±0.52, which was slightly lower than that of the surface. The dominance in the surface was 0.50±0.15, with a fluctuation range of more than 0.5 in MW and less than 0.5 in the TWC, which was different from the diversity. According to correlation analysis and principal component analysis (PCA), the presence of phytoplankton standing crops was high in CW but low in MW and TWC. That is, phytoplankton communities in early autumn were strongly affected by the expansion and mixing of water masses in western South Sea.