CHA, Ha-Rim; FAUTIN, Daphne Gail; SONG, Jun-Im: The Diversity of Korean Sea Anemones (Cnidaria: Actiniaria)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the regional distribution of Korean actiniarians and to evaluate the frequency of occurrence of each species in Korea. Specimens were collected at 75 localities on the coast of the Korean peninsula and islands from 1962 to 2000. They were deposited in the Natural History Museum of Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea. For this project, the 19 most abundant species, which comprised around half of the collected specimens, were studied. The distribution of actiniarians was analyzed relative to four regions defined by current patterns – East Sea, South Sea, Yellow Sea, and southern part of Cheju-do. Each of those areas has a characteristic actiniarian fauna. However, the most widespread species occur in all four regions; they are Anthopleura kurogane, A. midori, and Haliplanella luciae. This research was supported by the MOST through National Research Program (2000) for Woman’s University (No. 00-B-WB-06-A-06) and US NSF grant 9978106 (in the program Partnerships to Enhance Expertise in Taxonomy (PEET)).