Jellyfish Blooms Not Caused By Global Warming And Overfishing Of Competitors, Study Suggests

They've shut down power stations and terrorized beachgoers. But does a surge in stories about jellyfish wreaking havoc really point to a man-made surge in the creatures themselves?

A new study in BioScience says it doesn't.

The study, by Robert H. Condon of Dauphin Island Sea Lab and 16 co-authors, denies the media's now standard contention that jellyfish population booms (called blooms) are caused by humans. According to a BioScience statement, the study suggests that "the perception of an increase is the result of more scientific attention being paid to phenomena such as jellyfish blooms and media fascination with the topic."

Condon, et al., note that the data doesn't support such a conclusion:

"Clearly, there are areas where jellyfish have increased — the situation with the Giant Jellyfish in Japan is a classic example," said Condon. "But there are also areas where jellyfish have decreased, or fluctuate."

The "situation with the Giant Jellyfish in Japan" Condon mentions was a 2009 bloom of large Nomura's jellyfish off Japan's west coast. The events that followed, including a 10-ton fishing boat sinking while hauling in a net full of the massive creatures, made this bloom a turning point in the public perception of the jellyfish problem.

Condon and his co-authors acknowledge that researchers disagree over the best way to interpret jellyfish data, according to a statement from BioScience.

"They point out that changes in populations of jellyfish and similar sea organisms do have important consequences for local marine ecology and could be affected by human activity. For that reason, they are assembling a comprehensive new database that will enable trends in the numbers of such creatures to be assessed and the links to human activity studied. But for now, Condon and his co-authors believe the case for jellyfish-dominated seas in coming decades is not proven."

"This is the first time an undertaking of this size on the global scale has been attempted, but it is important to know whether jellyfish blooms are human-induced or arise from natural circumstances," said Condon.

Comments

[Sanders McGrillin]

07:52 PM on 02/06/2012

This morning you've got time for a hot, home-cooked breakfast
Delicious and piping hot in only 3 microwave minutes.

(Are you kidding?)
Yo, pretty packages of frosted delights
Look, it comes with a toy, hehe, I like that
I wanna number four, a number six, and throw in a plastic doughnut
Just enjoy the gritty crunch, it tastes just like chicken
Wrappers of many bite sizes
Man, are you freakin' blind? That's a rock
All mixed in the pot for momma's homemade from scratch, well, not quite
Toasted over flames, they be tasting quite right

(Everybody loves Jellyfish!)

All hail king Neptune and his water breathers
No snail thing too quick for his water feeders
Don't waste time with your net, our net worth is set ready, go
Many know others, but (what!?)
we be the colors of the mad and the wicked
we be bad, we be brickit with the 24 hour sign
shower my habits while you dine like rabbits
with the crunchy, crunchy carrots (oh that's chicken)
Gotta have it superfast

(A whole line of breakfasts you've got time for)

Superfast, superfast, I come in last
But just in time for breakfast
Keep it through, keep it through, forever blue
The night, the night throws at us
Aluminum, a crucial fun, aluminum
The sea is radioactive
Superfast Jellyfish

[TYRANNASAURUS]

10:52 AM on 02/06/2012

Jellyfish Taking Over World's Oceans? What Scientists Say....

Jellyfish go back 400 - 500 million years and were one of the larges groups then...so?

[Claudia L]

09:48 AM on 02/06/2012

If you get stung by a jellyfish just put ammonia soaked cotton ball on it and the sting immediately goes away.

[TYRANNASAURUS]

10:54 AM on 02/06/2012

Thanks........Claudia......I always carry a bottle of ammonia when I go to the beach...if I don't run into a jellyfish that stings...i can always drink it..

[Claudia L]

11:18 AM on 02/06/2012

Sorry. I have always lived by the beach. During jellyfish season, I always bring a plastic bag of stuff with me. A sting can last for a long time. Just trying to help. Also works for insects like bee and wasp stings. Of course Mr Tyrannasaurus some one who spits out people wouldn't be bothered by a jellyfish sting anyway.

[ubrew12]

09:13 PM on 02/06/2012

If you don't have a bottle of ammonia with you, you can always
++ok, I'm going to say it++
p8ss on it. Human urine has large amounts of uric acid in it, which performs the same function as ammonia. Growing up in the South Pacific, this was the time honored way to deal with such wounds.

[cuoi]

06:08 PM on 02/05/2012

I used to dive at a PA spring fed quarry below TMI. There were jelly fish blooms every year. I was told about them when I was getting certified and I thought that was the scuba equivalent of "snipe hunting". But one bright day as I was ascending, I saw them- like hundreds of white pulsating stars. Also did night dives there and no, no glowing jellies from effects of TMI.

[Hooagy]

02:37 PM on 02/05/2012

To solve the jellyfish population you must first run a infomerical claiming they are the key to the fountain of youth.

[cuoi]

06:09 PM on 02/05/2012

Go to a Chinese or Vietnamese market. Many types of dried jelly fish for sale.

[jenniferkizzy]

09:32 PM on 02/04/2012

scary.bye

[esosa233]

02:03 PM on 02/04/2012

Rise of the Planet of the Jellyfish!
Soon we'll all be battling Giant tentacle monster with our laser-guns!

[Robert Fanney]

07:50 PM on 02/03/2012

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_url?hl=en&q=http://www.vliz.be/imisdocs/publications/218346.pdf&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm0AKanLQjhgdaEito1EZfNi5crC3w&oi=scholarr

This and about twenty other studies say that global warming increases jellyfish blooms.

[Robert Fanney]

08:54 PM on 02/03/2012

OK. One other point to make. This study was funded, in part, by British Petroleum. Which, in my view, makes it extremely suspect.

[sunsetter]

06:01 PM on 02/25/2012

And Chesapeake Energy gave $25 million to the Sierra Club.

You of course do know that evil "big energy" give more to AGW groups than the dreaded skeptics, right?

[humantoo]

11:27 AM on 02/03/2012

the fact that ships going from port to port carry jellyfish stuck to their hulls makes the blooms more noticeable, bringing different types of jellyfish into areas they previously never were in. the only man cause of jellyfish population changes is the globalization of the shipping industry.

[TheSarge]

09:41 AM on 02/03/2012

The media claims everything is a result of climate change, but I thought I read somewhere that some do believe this is a result of overfishing.The balance of life in our oceans has obviously been altered, humans have no concept of taking only what you need. I was snorkeling the reefs at Elbow Cay and I saw a Wal-Mart bag snagged on a branch of coral, I realised we will likely destroy this planet.

[nschomer]

10:52 AM on 02/03/2012

Do yourself a favor, don't even google "Pacific Gyre"

[TheSarge]

01:23 PM on 02/03/2012

Jesus I had no idea, I dont even know what to say about that. I try hard to keep a small freshwater creek where I live protected, and all the FBA bio-research Ive done comes out of my own pocket. After seeing that what is the point, it would take take the entire planet to clean that up. Damn you nschomer and your use of the "Google" psych attack. lol On a serious note we have failed to be the caretakers of the Earth.

[sunsetter]

06:05 PM on 02/25/2012

Abaco is very cool.

[bryanzth]

07:06 AM on 02/03/2012

Ehh, when not even jellyfish are left, there's always soylent green! BZ.

[bryanzth]

07:02 AM on 02/03/2012

When enormous numbers of vertebrate and crustaceans are being taken from the sea, that leaves a gap, eh? And Nature abhors a vacuum. So, I don't know, but invertebrates just found a new opportunity and are taking advantage of their advantages.

To say that this bloom is counteracted by decreases in some areas is fishy, let's say.

BZ.

[Ta Zoltana]

03:35 AM on 02/03/2012

The good in this is that jellyfish, when properly dried, are delicious grated or sliced over salads, noodles or in soups of all sorts.

[ChasG]

02:25 AM on 02/03/2012

The argument that sea jellies are not increasing in density everywhere somehow exonerates climate change is a pretty simplistic and ignorant argument which I expect the vast majority of climate scientists will debunk in due course.  

For example, models of global warming identify areas on the planet that will show signs of cooling while the planet overall is warming up.  The reasons for this can be complex, but melting ice and ocean tides are bring cooler water and cooler moister air down from the Arctic to the Pacific Northwest, which climatologists predicted would be one of the areas that would initially cool off as a result of global warming.

The fact is sea jellies were a predominant early life form when the planet was much warmer than it has been in millennia, and the return of populations in certain area MIGHT be related to the oceans warming about 1 degree over the past century.

[Robco1]

08:32 PM on 02/03/2012

I think the authors are being conservative in the true sense of the word, saying that there is currently not enough evidence to point to any one specific cause. However, I would think that this is the kind of thing you'd see in a destabilized ecosystem (population imbalances, especially in lower-on-the-foodchain) and if further studies bear out that there is indeed an increase in jellyfish blooms, and this is partly the result of global warming, I would expect few would be surprised.

[turkeyfish]

02:11 AM on 02/03/2012

All the article says is that the number of reports of Jellyfish sightings has increase public awareness of jellyfish and the increased perception of jellyfish numbers may explain their apparent increase, which the authors believe may not be real. The article does not conclude whether or not other scientists, notably fisheries ecologists are incorrect in attributing documented drops in landings of fishes as the result of jellyfish blooms.

The article is of considerable interest in that it attempts to establish a jellyfish monitoring program, necessary to better resolve these issues, particularly important being able to recognize at jellyfish are not all alike and consequently the blooms observed are often not the same species. One problem with the paper is that it uses Google to document the number of news reports dating back to 1941. Since many earlier sittings in the media may have as yet not been scanned or electronically entered into Google, this method of establishing a baseline for the number of reported media events may also be biased. Nonetheless, it seems likely that the overall observation of increasing number of reported sittings in more recent times is probably accurate.

Clearly, more than just sittings are needed to address the relevant questions, particularly the total energy flow in and out of "jellyfish" biomass, as well as basic biological parameters of many poorly studied species.