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Sung-Hwan Lee

Seoul National University · Agricultural and Biological Sciences

About the Lab

Professor Sung-Hwan Lee's research lab specializes in molecular systematics, phylogenetics, and DNA barcoding of hemipteran insects, particularly aphids, true bugs, and whiteflies. The lab focuses on using mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences—especially the COI gene—to resolve species boundaries, reconstruct evolutionary relationships, and support biodiversity monitoring and pest management. Key research directions include species delimitation within cryptic species complexes, molecular dating of divergences, and the application of DNA barcoding in ecological and agricultural contexts.

DNA barcodinghemipteran phylogenyspecies delimitationmitochondrial COIpest management

Research Overview

Papers
565
Total Citations
3,747
Papers (5y)
92
Primary Field
Agricultural and Biological Sciences

Research Output Trend

Figures are computed from collected data and may differ slightly.

Publications per year (5y)
92total
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
Citations per year (5y)
212total
20222023202420252026

Selected Papers

15
1
Article|211 citations·2019
Scalable muscle-actuated human simulation and control
Seunghwan Lee, Moonseok Park, Kyoungmin Lee, Jehee Lee
SJR Q1ACM Transactions on Graphics

Many anatomical factors, such as bone geometry and muscle condition, interact to affect human movements. This work aims to build a comprehensive musculoskeletal model and its control system that reproduces realistic human movements driven by muscle contraction dynamics. The variations in the anatomic model generate a spectrum of human movements ranging from typical to highly stylistic movements. To do so, we discuss scalable and reliable simulation of anatomical features, robust control of under

Computer Vision and Pattern RecognitionComputer Science
2
Article|173 citations·2013
Taxonomic Status of the Bemisia tabaci Complex (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) and Reassessment of the Number of Its Constituent Species
Wonhoon Lee, Jongsun Park, Gwan-Seok Lee, Seunghwan Lee, Shin‐ichi Akimoto
SJR Q1PLoS ONEOA

Bemisia tabaci (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) is one of the most important insect pests in the world. In the present study, the taxonomic status of B. tabaci and the number of species composing the B. tabaci complex were determined based on 1059 COI sequences of B. tabaci and 509 COI sequences of 153 hemipteran species. The genetic divergence within B. tabaci was conspicuously higher (on average, 11.1%) than interspecific genetic divergence within the respective genera of the 153 species (on average,

Insect ScienceAgricultural and Biological Sciences
3
Article|110 citations·2010
COI barcoding of true bugs (Insecta, Heteroptera)
Sunghoon Jung, Ram Keshari Duwal, Seunghwan Lee
SJR Q1Molecular Ecology ResourcesOA

Several recent studies have proposed that partial DNA sequences of the cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) mitochondrial gene might serve as DNA barcodes for identifying and differentiating between animal species, such as birds, fish and insects. In this study, we tested the effectiveness of a COI barcode to identify true bugs from 139 species collected from Korea and adjacent regions (Japan, Northeastern China and Fareast Russia). All the species had a unique COI barcode sequence except for the genus

Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and SystematicsAgricultural and Biological Sciences
4
Article|102 citations·2011
Molecular phylogeny of the plant bugs (Heteroptera: Miridae) and the evolution of feeding habits
Sunghoon Jung, Seunghwan Lee
SJR Q1Cladistics

The first comprehensive cladistic analysis of Miridae, the plant bugs, is presented based on analysis of 3935 base pairs of mitochondrial (16S, COI) and nuclear (18S, 28SD3) DNA for 91 taxa in seven subfamilies. Data were analysed using maximum likelihood (ML), parsimony and Bayesian inference (BI) phylogenetic frameworks. The phylogenetic results are compared with previous hypotheses of higher relationships in the family using alternative hypothesis tests. A Bayesian relaxed molecular clock is

Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and SystematicsAgricultural and Biological Sciences
5
Article|90 citations·2010
Barcoding aphids (Hemiptera: Aphididae) of the Korean Peninsula: updating the global data set
Wonhoon Lee, Hyojoong Kim, Jongok Lim, Hwalran Choi, Yeyeun Kim, Yang‐Su Kim, Jeong‐Yeon Ji, Robert G. Foottit, Seunghwan Lee
SJR Q1Molecular Ecology Resources

DNA barcode (mitochondrial COI) sequences are provided for species identification of aphids from the Korean Peninsula. Most (98%) of the 154 species had distinct COI sequences (average 0.05% intraspecific pairwise divergence) relative to the degree of sequence divergence among species (average value 5.84%). For species in common with other regions, barcodes for Korean samples fell near or within known levels of variation. Based on these results, we conclude that DNA barcodes can provide an effec

Insect ScienceAgricultural and Biological Sciences
6
Article|82 citations·2011
Macroevolutionary Patterns in the Aphidini Aphids (Hemiptera: Aphididae): Diversification, Host Association, and Biogeographic Origins
Hyojoong Kim, Seunghwan Lee, Yikweon Jang
SJR Q1PLoS ONEOA

Most generic divergences in Aphidini occurred in the Middle Tertiary when primary hosts, mainly in the Rosaceae, were diverging, whereas species-level divergences were contemporaneous with diversification of the secondary hosts such as Poaceae in the Middle to Late Tertiary. Our results suggest that evolution of host alternation within Aphidini may have occurred during the Middle Tertiary (Oligocene) when the secondary hosts emerged.

Insect ScienceAgricultural and Biological Sciences
7
Article|61 citations·2012
Molecular phylogeny of black fungus gnats (Diptera: Sciaroidea: Sciaridae) and the evolution of larval habitats
Seunggwan Shin, Sunghoon Jung, Frank Menzel, Kai Heller, Heung‐Sik Lee, Seunghwan Lee
SJR Q1Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution
Insect ScienceAgricultural and Biological Sciences
8
Article|57 citations·2008
A molecular phylogeny of the tribe Aphidini (Insecta: Hemiptera: Aphididae) based on the mitochondrial tRNA/COII, 12S/16S and the nuclear EF1α genes
Hyojoong Kim, Seunghwan Lee
SJR Q1Systematic Entomology

Abstract A phylogeny of the tribe Aphidini (Hemiptera: Aphididae) was reconstructed from three gene fragments: two mitochondrial regions, partial tRNA‐leucine + cytochrome oxidase II (tRNA/COII), partial 12S rRNA + tRNA‐valine + 16S rRNA (12S/16S) and one nuclear gene, the elongation factor‐1 alpha (EF1α). Bayesian phylogenetic (BP) analyses were performed on each individual dataset of tRNA/COII, 12S/16S and EF1α, and maximum parsimony (MP), Bremer support test, maximum likelihood (ML) and BP an

Molecular BiologyBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
9
Article|53 citations·2009
Complete Mitochondrial Genome of Brown Marmorated Stink Bug Halyomorpha halys (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae), and Phylogenetic Relationships of Hemipteran Suborders
Wonhoon Lee, Joongnam Kang, Chan-Sik Jung, Kim A. Hoelmer, Si Hyeock Lee, Seunghwan Lee
SJR Q1Molecules and CellsOA

The newly sequenced complete mitochondrial genome of the brown marmorated stink bug, Halyomorpha halys (Stål) (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae), is a circular molecule of 16,518 bp with a total A+T content of 76.4% and two extensive repeat regions in A+T rich region. Nucleotide composition and codon usage of H. halys are about average when compared with values observed in 19 other published hemipteran mitochondrial genomes. Phylogenetic analyses using these 20 hemipteran mitochondrial genomes support th

Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and SystematicsAgricultural and Biological Sciences
10
Article|42 citations·2011
Outbreak of an exotic flatid, Metcalfa pruinosa (Say) (Hemiptera: Flatidae), in the capital region of Korea
Yeyeun Kim, Minyoung Kim, Ki–Jeong Hong, Seunghwan Lee
SJR Q2Journal of Asia-Pacific Entomology
Insect ScienceAgricultural and Biological Sciences
11
Article|40 citations·2017
Cryptic diversity of the subfamily Calaphidinae (Hemiptera: Aphididae) revealed by comprehensive DNA barcoding
Yerim Lee, Wonhoon Lee, Mariusz Kanturski, Robert G. Foottit, Shin‐ichi Akimoto, Seunghwan Lee
SJR Q1PLoS ONEOA

Aphids are a species rich group comprising many important pests. However, species identification can be very difficult for aphids due to their morphological ambiguity. DNA barcoding has been widely adopted for rapid and reliable species identification as well as cryptic species detection. In this study, we investigated cryptic diversity in the subfamily Calaphidinae (Hemiptera: Aphididae) based on 899 sequences of cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) for 115 morphospecies (78 species collected in this s

Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and SystematicsAgricultural and Biological Sciences
12
Article|35 citations·2008
Design of Speed Control Loop of A Variable Speed Diesel Engine Generator by Electric Governor
Seunghwan Lee, Jung-Sik Yim, Joonhwan Lee, Seung‐Ki Sul

Electric governors are widely used in diesel engine applications. And a proportional, integral and derivative(PED) controllers runs the electric governor in order to control the engine speed. However, it is difficult to analyze the system stability due to the non-linear characteristics of the diesel engine, and as a result, the PID controller should be tuned by trial-and-error approach. In this paper, a locally linearized diesel engine model is proposed based on the experimentally obtained engin

Control and Systems EngineeringEngineering
13
Article|35 citations·2008
Molecular Systematics of the Genus Megoura (Hemiptera: Aphididae) Using Mitochondrial and Nuclear DNA Sequences
Hyojoong Kim, Seunghwan Lee
SJR Q1Molecules and CellsOA

To construct the molecular systematics of the genus Megoura (Hemiptera: Aphididae), DNA based-identifi-cation was performed using four mitochondrial and three nuclear DNA regions: partial cytochrome c oxidase I (COI), partial tRNA-leucine + cytochrome c oxidase II (tRNA/COII), cytochrome b (CytB), partial 12S rRNA + tRNA-valine + 16S rRNA (12S/16S), elongation factor-1 alpha (EF1 alpha), and the internal transcribed spacers 1 and 2 (ITS1, ITS2). Pairwise sequence divergences between taxa were co

Insect ScienceAgricultural and Biological Sciences
14
Article|35 citations·2017
Molecular phylogeny of Macrosiphini (Hemiptera: Aphididae): An evolutionary hypothesis for the Pterocomma-group habitat adaptation
Hwalran Choi, Seunggwan Shin, Sunghoon Jung, Dave Clarke, Seunghwan Lee
SJR Q1Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and SystematicsAgricultural and Biological Sciences
15
Article|31 citations·2019
Higher‐level molecular phylogeny of jumping plant lice (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha: Psylloidea)
Geonho Cho, Igor Malenovský, Seunghwan Lee
SJR Q1Systematic Entomology

Abstract Jumping plant lice (Hemiptera: Psylloidea) are known for a few deleterious pest species worldwide, yet the phylogeny of the group has been poorly understood until very recently. Here, we reconstruct the higher‐level phylogeny for the superfamily Psylloidea based on multilocus DNA sequences, three mitochondrial (COI‐tRNA leu ‐COII, 12S, 16S) and five nuclear (18S, 28S D2, 28S D3, 28S D6–7a, 28S D9–10) gene fragments, using maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference phylogenetic frameworks

Plant ScienceAgricultural and Biological Sciences

Research Areas

Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and SystematicsInsect ScienceGeneticsEcologyPlant ScienceMolecular Biology

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