독도 해역서 신종 와편모조류 발견…'독도엔시스' 이름 붙었다

Translation

The Advanced Institute of Convergence Technology, a body jointly funded by Gyeonggi Province and Seoul National University, has found a new dinoflagellate species living attached to the surface of seaweed in the waters off Dokdo and named it 'Gambierdiscus dokdoensis'. It is the first case of a Gambierdiscus organism being formally classified and recorded in Korean waters. According to the institute on 22 September, the team collected the dinoflagellate from seaweed at a depth of about 20 metres near Hokdomgul off Dokdo in September 2024. Dinoflagellates are single-celled organisms that move with two flagella, and this species is a bottom-attached type that lives on the surface of seaweed. An organism of the same lineage was reported off the coast of Japan about ten years ago as 'Gambierdiscus sp. type 3' on the basis of genetic information, but no formal scientific name was given. The team compared the cell shape and genetic lineage of the culture obtained at Dokdo and classified it as a separate new species. Some species of the genus Gambierdiscus are linked to the production of toxic substances such as ciguatoxin and the genus is watched internationally as a harmful subtropical group, but whether dokdoensis is toxic has not yet been confirmed.