Jellyfish blooms: advances and challenges

Abstract

As jellyfish interactions with humans increase in coastal waters, there is an urgent need to provide science-based management strategies to mitigate the negative socioeconomic impacts of jellyfish blooms and to exploit potential benefits of their ecosystem services. This Theme Section presents the latest advances in jellyfish research, from new sampling methods to food-web and life-cycle studies. The methodological advances presented will help to overcome difficulties in sampling due to the fluctuations in abundance and irregular distributions of jellyfish. The ecology of gelatinous species in marine food webs is explored through studying interactions between jellyfish and fish. Aspects of jellyfish life cycles, which often include both attached polyps and swimming medusae, are elucidated by locating the polyps and determining the factors that contribute to their success. Knowledge on all of these factors will be essential to understand the bloom dynamics of specific jellyfish groups