Marine Scientists Create Global Jellyfish Database Map

An international study has led to the creation of the world’s first global database of jellyfish records to map jellyfish populations in the oceans.

The debate regarding future trends, and subsequent ecological, biogeochemical and societal impacts, of jellyfish and jellyfish blooms in a changing ocean is hampered by a lack of information about jellyfish biomass and distribution from which to compare.

To address this knowledge gap, scientists used the Jellyfish Database Initiative, or JeDI, to map jellyfish biomass in the upper 200m of the world’s oceans and explore the underlying environmental causes driving the observed patterns of distribution. The Jellyfish Database Initiative, or JeDI, is the first scientifically-coordinated global-scale database of jellyfish records, and currently holds over 476,000 data items on jellyfish and other gelatinous taxa.

The database can be accessed and searched at http://jedi.nceas.ucsb.edu/

Cathy H. Lucas, Daniel O. B. Jones, Catherine J. Hollyhead, Robert H. Condon, Carlos M. Duarte, William M. Graham, Kelly L. Robinson, Kylie A. Pitt, Mark Schildhauer and Jim Regetz. Gelatinous zooplankton biomass in the global oceans: geographic variation and environmental drivers. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 2014

Image shows golden jellyfish (Mastigias) in Jellyfish Lake, Palau.