JeDI First Global Map of Medusa Network Launched

JeDI has been designed as an open-access database for all researchers, media and public.

The first global mapping of medusa Jellyfish has been elaborated by an international study with the cooperation of CSIC. Mapping, tracking and monitoring of global populations of Jellyfish is of vital importance to corroborate environmental issues, contamination, impacts on trophic chains, take-over of invasive species and possible impacts on fishing sectors.

Recent sightings of strange jellyfish in the coasts of Chile and California US reported by the fishing sector reveal the importance of the work of the Superior Council of Scientific Investigations of Spain CSIC. Historically medusa giant jellyfish populations have been know to affect fishing sector seriously -such as in the case of Japan where coast fishing zones have been under this impact..

On August 13^th CSIC reported from Spain on the conclusions of the study in which it participated. "The first planetarian data base on medusa register for the mapping of their populations in the oceans has been elaborated," CSIC stated. The scientific organization assures that the global map JeDI Jellyfish Database Initiative contributes in closing the deficits of information available on medusa biomass and global distribution.

"This deficit (of knowledge) weights upon the scientific debate and the media blocking the road to understanding of medusa behavior in a changing ocean and the ecological impacts". The work was published in full paper at the GLOBAL ECOLOGY and BIOGEOGRAPHY Magazine.

Contributors of the project include experts from NOAA, US, Africa Chile, Universities, Oceanographic institutes, Japan, France, YK, , Australia, others. JeDI is a scientifically-coordinated global jellyfish database housed at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), currently holding over 476,000 quantitative, categorical, presence-absence and presence only records on global jellyfish populations spanning the past two centuries.

JeDI has been designed as an open-access database for all researchers, media and public to use as a current and future research tool and a data hub for general information on jellyfish populations. With this resource, anyone can use JeDI to address questions about the spatial and temporal extent of jellyfish populations at local, regional and global scales, and the potential implications for ecosystem services and biogeochemical processes.

CSIC adds that the global platform will allow for the exploration of environmental causes which motivate observed distribution. JeDI is open for anyone with access to online technology providing medusa space-time ocean distribution, sightings and population data locally, regionally and globally.

Cathy Lucas of the Southampton UK University highlighted the implications of the network The study revealed that medusa and gelatinous zooplankton inhabit and are present in all the basins of all global oceans. Greater concentration of areas is located in the Mid-Latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

North Atlantic Ocean conditions -such as dissolved oxygen and temperature of ocean surface have been identified as the main contributors to the distribution of medusa biomass. JeDI says there is still much more work to be done such as examining future tendencies, providing doorways to more studies and reaching conclusions. Medusa biomass increase could alter biodiversity and ocean trophic chains including zooplankton and phytoplankton and alter the biogeochemical cycles.

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