Mr Kyu-Young Shim1, Mr In-Cheol Yeo1, A/Prof. Chang-Bum Jeong1
1Incheon National University, , South Korea
Biography:
Kyu-Young Shim is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Marine Science at Incheon National University, Republic of Korea. His research focuses on marine biodiversity using environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding, with particular interest in community structure, ecological interactions, and responses to environmental change.
Abstract:
The Korean Peninsula encompasses diverse coastal environments shaped by contrasting oceanographic regimes, including the Kuroshio Current influence in the East Sea, strong tidal dynamics in the Yellow Sea, and complex circulation patterns in the South Sea. These environmental gradients play a critical role in structuring marine biodiversity and food-web organization. However, comprehensive assessments of climate-related vulnerability across Korean coastal ecosystems remain limited, particularly at the food-web level. In this study, we employed multi-marker environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding (12S rRNA, 18S rRNA, and COI) to characterize biodiversity across multiple trophic levels and reconstruct coastal marine food webs across Korean waters during summer and winter. We further evaluated the influence of environmental drivers on community assembly and food-web structure and assessed the potential vulnerability of ecological networks to projected temperature increases associated with climate change. Our results revealed pronounced spatial and seasonal shifts in biodiversity, accompanied by substantial reorganization of food-web networks among coastal regions. Network analyses identified differences in structural stability and climate sensitivity, with winter ecosystems in the East Sea exhibiting elevated vulnerability to warming scenarios. These findings demonstrate that environmental gradients and seasonal variability strongly regulate the organization and resilience of Korean coastal marine food webs. Overall, this study highlights the value of eDNA-based food-web approaches for assessing ecosystem vulnerability and predicting ecological responses to ongoing climate change.