Characteristics and distribution of terpenes in South Korean forests

Abstract

The importance of forests continues to increase throughout the world, and one of the reasons is that a forest is a major place to emit terpenes, which have been reported to be beneficial to human health. In South Korea, forests occupy about 64% of the total land area and consist mainly of pine and oak trees. Since only a limited number of forests have been analyzed to date, a comprehensive understanding of terpenes emitted from regional forests remains in its infancy in Korea. Here, to gain insights into terpenes from regional forests located in South Korea, we review the characteristics of Korean forests and recent studies on major terpenes emitted from regional forests as well as from native trees dominant in South Korea. We also discuss meteorological factors that affect the terpene emissions in Korean forests. In conclusion, 18 types of terpenes were detected in Korean forests and their compositions in different forests are largely dependent on the dominant plant species in the forest. Moreover, terpene emissions in Korean forests are affected by various environmental factors, including temperature, amount and duration of daylight, season, and age of trees. To improve the understanding of the characteristics of terpene distribution, more studies are required on the terpene production of Korean forests in various regions.

Forest Volatile Organic Compounds and Their Effects on Human Health: A State-of-the-Art Review

“…Evidence from research done on open-field emissions of both conifer and deciduous forests [34][35][36], and on un-detached leaves or branchlets [30,37], supports these estimates, indicating that, apart from isoprene, the most common and dominant forest VOCs in terms of percentage of the total emissions are monoterpenes such as α-pinene, d-limonene, and β-pinene, followed by sabinene, myrcene, and camphene. Monoterpenes' global annual emissions amount to 330-480 million tons, with an average atmospheric concentration above forests from some pmol/mol to several nmol/mol.…”

“…However, the most typical compounds emitted after biotic stress are the homoterpenes TMTT and DMNT [17]. Overall, the diversity of BVOCs is certainly much higher, and this is represented in Table 2, in descending order of quantity of emissions [4,16,30,34,35,37,42,[46][47][48][49][50][51]. and release BVOCs directly from mesophyll cells in a more light-and temperature-dependent manner (in particular, Fagaceae and Salicaceae) [12].…”

Neuroprotective Effects of Limonene (+) against Aβ42-Induced Neurotoxicity in a <i>Drosophila</i> Model of Alzheimer’s Disease

“…18) Terpenes have a wide range of biological properties ranging from anti-oxidation, anti-inflammation, and anti-cancer to neuroprotection. 16,19) Based on the physiological activities of terpenes, the potential therapeutic efficacy of terpenes in a variety of human disease models has been studied. The results of these studies have focused on the beneficial effects of terpenes on immune-related diseases and cancers.…”

On the multiday haze in the Asian continental outflow: the important role of synoptic conditions combined with regional and local sources

“…Although the measurements in this study were conducted in the cold season, conifers that occupy ∼ 40 % of the forest in South Korea (Lee et al, 2017) can be a biogenic source of organic compounds. Whereas short-chain (light) n-alkanes are mostly associated with incomplete combustion or vehicle exhaust (Gentner et al, 2017), biosynthetic processes result in long-chain high molecular weight (C 27 -C 33 ) n-alkanes with a distinctive odd-to-even carbon number preference (Simoneit et al, 1991;Rogge et al, 1993).…”