Eastern Yellow Sea Drainages
ID
638
Author(s)
J. Hales
Countries
China
Korea, Democratic People's Republic of
Korea, Republic of
Major Habitat Type
Temperate coastal rivers
Drainages flowing into
Korea Bay, Yellow Sea
Description
Boundaries
This ecoregion includes the Yalu basin (forming the border between China and North Korea), and the rivers of the Korean Peninsula that drain to the west coast.
Description of endemic fishes
16 endemic to the ecoregion and 17 that are shared only with Southeastern Korea [ecoregion 639]
Justification for delineation
Delineations were determined using a bottom-up approach that employed both published and unpublished field data and expert assessment (Abell et al. 2008; Kim 1997). This ecoregion was distinguished by its fauna and zoogeography (M. Kottelat pers. comm. 2006).
Level of taxonomic exploration
There is very little data for North Korea, and the data is not well reconciled with adjacent areas in China. This suggests that the fish fauna of northeastern China should be re-examined in detail (M. Kottelat pers. comm. 2006).
References
- Abell, Robin,M.L. Thieme,C. Revenga,M. Bryer,M. Kottelat,N. Bogutskaya,B. Coad,N. Mandrak,S.C. Balderas,W. Bussing,M.L.J. Stiassny,P. Skelton,G.R. Allen,P. Unmack,A. Naseka,R. Ng,N. Sindorf,J. Robertson,E. Armijo,J.V. Higgins,T.J. Heibel,E. Wikramanayake, (2008). "Freshwater Ecoregions of the World: A New Map of Biogeographic Units for Freshwater Biodiversity Conservation" BioScience 58 (5) pp. 403-414.
- Kim, I.-S. (1997) Illustrated encyclopedia of fauna and flora of Korea; Vol 37: Freshwater fishes The National Textbook Company Ltd : Korea