Casey Rice of the NOAA/Northwest Fisheries Science Center talks about Jellyfish in South Puget Sound.

Study explores whether changes in fish and jellyfish distribution are natural history footnotes or potential indicators of ecological health.

From Casey’s talk:

Among his conclusions:

Jellyfish is a major competent of biota.

There is an inverse relationship between jellyfish and overall fish abundance and diversity.

Jellyfish are not bad. They are a widely diverse group. “Jellyfish are people too.”

More research is needed, “we really need to do these field studies.”

Questions and Answers:

Are they being impacted by same factors, but they’re just more resilient?

They can be. Diets, passive feeding, won’t starve and die in a low oxygen environment.

You may miss some needed data by looking at only a portion of the year.

They would get more year round data if they did the research again. Not just across the year, but across the entire area.