Mesodinium rubrum is a cosmopolitan red tide ciliate and also an obligate mixotroph requiring
cryptophycean prey to sustain photosynthesis and growth. Bloom formation by M. rubrum has been
recorded in Korea since early 1980s. As part of these records, 40 cases of M. rubrum outbreaks in Korean
coastal waters during last three decades were archived in Red Tide Monitoring Dataset of the National
Fisheries Research and Development Institute of Korea. Distribution and ecology of Korean M. rubrum
populations were first reported in an article about the red tide occurrence and species succession in
Jinhae Bay (Park et al., 1988). The first ever temperate strain of M. rubrum was established from Gomso
Bay, Korea in 2002 (Yih et al., 2004a), which was followed by a series of research on the biological and
ecophysiological characteristics of the ciliate strain MR-MAL01 and then by the first successful
cultivation of a DSP dinoflagellate, Dinophysis acuminata strain DA-MAL01 in 2006. Here, we summarize
occurrence of M. rubrum in Korean coastal waters encompassing from the national wide long-term
monitoring program to the spatiotemporally fine-scaled regional studies. In parallel, we review previous
ecophysiological researches using Korean M. rubrum cultures and finally added our perspectives on the
future directions of M. rubrum research in Korea.