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In this study, aggregate and solitary zooids of salps were collected from Southern and East Sea of Korea. By morphological characteristic examinations, eight species in the subfamily Salpinae were identified as new records in Korean waters: Pegea bicaudata (Quoy and Gaimard 1826); Pegea confoederata (Forskal 1775); Ritteriella amboinensis (Apstein 1904); Ritteriella retracta (Ritter 1906); Salpa aspera Chamisso, 1819; Salpa maxima Forskal, 1775; Traustedtia multitentaculata (Quoy and Gaimard 1834); and Weelia cylindrica (Cuvier 1804). These species were redescribed and reported with illustrations of the photographs. There are 16 species from the subfamily Salpinae which were reported from Korea. Keywords: Korean waters, Morphologic identification, Salpinae species

Joint study with the Union of Biodiversity Organizations on the marine invertebrates of Bigeumdo (Is.), Sinan-gun, Jeollanam-do was conducted over 3 sessions between March and September of 2011. Compared to the 2nd National Natural Environment Survey of 2000 (Ministry of Environment), 28 new species, including 10 mollusk species, were additionally observed, for a total of 71 marine invertebrates species belonging to 43 families. A list of 117 species belonging to 58 families, which includes the 71 marine invertebrates species observed during the study and the 88 species reported in the 2nd National Natural Environment Survey, was used to create an inventory of marine invertebrates studied in Bigeumdo (Is.), Sinan-gun, Jeollanam-do.

Five species in the genus Thalia of the family Salpidae are described: Thalia cicar van Soest, 1973, Thalia democratica (Forskal, 1775), Thalia orientalis Tokioka, 1937, Thalia rhomboides (Quoy and Gaimard, 1824), and Thalia sibogae van Soest, 1973. All of these species are new to the Korean fauna. A key to the Korean Thalia species is provided.

Two species in two genera of the family Salpidae were identified in Korean waters: Ihlea punctata (Forskal, 1775) and Salpa fusiformis Cuvier, 1804. I. punctata is a newly reported species in Korean fauna, while S. fusiformis is redescribed with unrecorded solitary zooid stage.

A taxonomic study of the family Antedonidae is presented. The specimens were collected in the coastal seas of Korea from 1970 to 1994 and deposited in the Natural History Museum of Ewha Womans University. Four species, Heliometra glacialis maxima, Antedon serrata, Antedon parviflora and Andrometra psyche of the subfamilies Heliometrinae and Antedoninae were identified, of which 3 species, Antedon serrata, Antedon parviflora and Andrometra psyche in the subfamily Antedoninae are new to Korea. The subfamily Antedoninae is reported for the first time in Korea.

Urochordates, the most primitive group in phylum Chordata, are mostly sessile as adults although some are free living. Presently, the ancestral stock of urochordates as well as chordates has been the focus of interest and two conflicting hypotheses have been presented. A free swimming ancestor is one and a sessile, filter feeding ancestor is the other. To clarify the phylogenetic relationships within the urochordates, 22 urochordates and five others as outgroups were used. And we applied neighbor joining, maximum likelihood, and maximum parsimony methods to partial 18S rDNA sequences. The inferred phylogeny in all analyses indicates that order Aplousobranchia of class Ascidiacea appears to be the most ancestral group among urochordates. But it is not clear for the low bootstrap value. The remaining two orders of ascidians, Phlebobranchia and Stolidobranchia, form monophyletic groups respectively, which are well supported by high bootstrap values. These two orders are closer to classes of Thaliacea and App...

Systematic relationship of 13 species representing seven orders of anthozoans, and one hydrozoan as an outgroup, were investigated. Distance and parsimony methods were used to analyze nucleotide sequence data obtained from the 18S rDNA. The inferred phylogeny indicates that two orders, Ceriantharia and Antipatharia within subclass Ceriantipatharia, are not closely related to each other. Instead, the former appears to be the most ancestral group among anthozoans but the latter is more closely related to order Actiniaria within subclass Zoantharia. The result also indicates that the actiniarian may not be a monophyletic group, because Epiactis japonica is related more to order Scleractinia. Subclass Octocorallia appears to be a monophyletic group, within which order Pennatulacea diversed at first, and then orders Alcyonacea and Gorgonacea diversed later.