Changes of species diversity and richness in subtidal macrobenthic communities after operation of the Sihwa tidal powerplant

초록

There has recently been a variety of changes in environment and biological communities of Sihwa lake: destruction of vertical stratification, reduction of anoxic or hypoxic areas, decline of harmful algal blooms, decrease of community variation, replacement from opportunists to equilibrium species etc. These events are presumed to be intimately related with regular circulation of large amounts of water in the process of operating Sihwa tidal power plant. The daily average amount of inflow (or outflow) is about one hundred and forty million tons of water, which is over ten times larger than that of before the plant operation and, in theory, capable of replacing entire water of Sihwa lake with external water within two or three days. In this study, we investigated the effect of tidal power plant operation on macrobenthic biodiversity of Sihwa lake. To do this, we analyzed distribution patterns of species diversity and richness in spatial and temporal scales, and these results sugge