Publication Date:
2022-05-25
Description:
Author Posting. © Ecological Society of America, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of Ecological Society of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 11 (2013): 91-97, doi:10.1890/110246.
Description:
Jellyfish (Cnidaria, Scyphozoa) blooms appear to be increasing in both intensity and frequency in many coastal areas worldwide, due to multiple hypothesized anthropogenic stressors. Here, we propose that the proliferation of artificial structures – associated with (1) the exponential growth in shipping, aquaculture, and other coastal industries, and (2) coastal protection (collectively, “ocean sprawl”) – provides habitat for jellyfish polyps and may be an important driver of the global increase in jellyfish blooms. However, the habitat of the benthic polyps that commonly result in coastal jellyfish blooms has remained elusive, limiting our understanding of the drivers of these blooms. Support for the hypothesized role of ocean sprawl in promoting jellyfish blooms is provided by observations and experimental evidence demonstrating that jellyfish larvae settle in large numbers on artificial structures in coastal waters and develop into dense concentrations of jellyfish-producing polyps.
Description:
This research is a contribution to the Global Expansion of
Jellyfish Blooms: Magnitude, Causes and Consequences
Working Group, supported by the National Center for
Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS is supported
by the National Science Foundation [grant #DEB-94-
21535], the University of California at Santa Barbara, and
the State of California) and the Evaluation of Ecosystem
Impacts of Global Change in Mediterranean Ecosystems
(MEDEICG) project, funded by the Spanish National
Plan of I+D (CTM2009-07013).
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
Format:
application/pdf
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