Lindsey Gasiorowski

Project 2 Rough Draft

Jellyfish Takeover

What’s not to love about going to the beach? For most people, the obvious answer

include sunburns, salty water, squawking seagulls, and of course, getting slightly too up-close-

and-personal with those silent dangers of the sea – jellyfish.

Jellyfish have to be one of nature’s most misleading creatures of the deep. Floating

peacefully along the ocean current, jellyfish seem harmless, maybe even beautiful, with their

bubble-like shaped, gelatinous heads (also referred to as medusae) bobbing along, followed by

their long, sweeping tentacles. However, despite these graceful features, jellyfish carry quite a

punch if an unwary swimmer gets too close. Each tentacle contains a toxin that can be

extremely painful or, in some species, even fatal, to anyone who is unfortunate enough to get

stung. So it’s no wonder why researchers have found the sudden and rapid increase in the

population of jellyfish to be of great concern. Jellyfish swim in large groups called blooms.

Unfortunately, jellyfish have been “blooming” out much more frequently in the past two

decades. This increase of “jelly” activity has had a less-than-desirable effect, both on the safety

of ocean-goers and the health of beach tourism. But what is it that has caused this change to

emerge? If we investigate more closely at this strange scenario, we’ll find that it’s us humans

that are the very cause of our own problems.

Ironically, it’s not anything we’re putting into the ocean that is the main factor for the

uprise of the jellyfish: it’s what we’re taking out that’s causing a huge part of the problem.

Overfishing has become a prevalent problem in recent years, but only now have researchers

started to realize just how much of a fiasco overfishing can cause in the oceanic ecosystem. Fish
and jellyfish are interconnected. Two main actions of fish help control and regulate the size and

strength of the blooms: predation and competition. Some fish are specially designed to hunt

and eat jellyfish, while others compete with them for the same food, thus preventing the

blooms from growing out of control. Of course, these controlling factors cannot contain jellyfish

populations while humans drag out hundreds of millions of tons from the ocean annually.

Without these natural population controls, the jellyfish are free to eat their fill and

reproduce without fear of competing for food or being hunted. With so many fish removed

from the sea each year, is it really such a surprise the jellyfish number has skyrocketed?

Besides continually removing nature’s population controls, we also aid in the disruptive

behavior of jellyfish through actions that bring these organisms to different environment that

they can survive in. Humans unwittingly transfer different species of jellyfish to new homes

through a process called translocation. In this case, young jellyfish most likely cling to the

bottom of ships and yachts, allowing themselves to be chartered across the ocean to far-away

places where they are able to make a new home for their species. And with no other fish to

compete with (compliments of overfishing) the invading jellyfish population grows rapidly,

unchecked and uncontrollable.

It doesn’t hurt that pollution of the ocean increases the food source of jellyfish as well.

In a process called eutrophication, nutrients from fertilizer provide more food for certain

microorganisms. As these organism consume the nutrients, they use up more oxygen from the

water, slowly suffocating other marine animals. Jellyfish, however, don’t mind the slightly

oxygen-depleted water one bit, and the microorganisms provide an excellent food source for
further growth of blooms. The other fish die out from lack of oxygen, leaving even more room

for blooms to grow outward and onward.

In our own defense, we probably have let this problem go on for so long because we

didn’t realize just how adaptable jellyfish truly are. That’s because as humans, we have a

natural tendency to overlook the abilities of lesser organisms, jellyfish being no exception.

Granted, jellyfish do not rank particularly high on the evolutionary scale; however it would be

unwise to underestimate their primitive physiological and behavioral structures. Jellyfish are

tough contenders when it comes to adapting to harsh environments. Unlike other marine

animals, they can shrink in size if food availability is low, therefore decreasing the amount of

energy needs. Their diets are flexible and contain a wide range of varying organisms, ranging

from plankton to large fish. Therefore, if one food source is depleted, others will be available to

replace it. Jellyfish can tolerate high pH levels of ocean water – in fact, some species thrive in it.

They have the ability to grow quickly and can regenerate as well: Quite sophisticated abilities

for such a simple animal.

With so many factors contributing to the onslaught of the jellies, one has to wonder

how we will ever bring their forces under control once more. Unfortunately, there’s no simple

answer to this query. A multitude of actions is required to even attempt to save the ocean life

from these floating terrors. There’s no way of telling whether these precautions will

necessarily fix the entirety of the jellyfish situation; and it’s important to remember that if we

hadn’t underestimated the impacts of our own actions, there wouldn’t be any problem to fix in

the first place.

 So far, not much has been done to better understand this organism, but some research

shows that jellyfish might just be beneficial to the medical field. We have only a basic

understanding of the toxins that develop in the tentacles of jellyfish; if we apply these physical

characteristics to the medical field, we might find that these nuisances might actually be useful

in treatments of certain diseases. In fact, most of society’s most helpful antidotes come from

the most undesirable sources: think about how anti-venom actually comes from the snake

itself. However, we won’t know if jellyfish have any medical uses until we conduct more

observations surrounding the toxic components and their values to fighting disease.

Since overfishing is the most prevalent cause to the increase of jellyfish activity, it might

be necessary to better regulate the fishing laws so as to better control the ocean ecosystem.

Overfishing has caused other problems besides the jellyfish increase, and we might find that

controlling the amount of fishing will benefit the ocean other ways. In fact, let’s not overlook

the fact that jellyfish themselves are considered a culinary delicacy in some cultures; who

knows what kind of nutritional value they might provide if we incorporate them more into our

diet? We may just discover the new dieting trend of the decade. Again, we must give the

opportunities a chance. It’s important that we keep all options open as to how to control

jellyfish, no matter how distasteful they may seem at first.

Because we overlook many of the remarkable adaptations of jellyfish, we don’t realize

just how much we’re helping these animals take over the ocean. It is up to us as a society to

look further into this problem, and pool our resources to find a way to stop the jellyfish

takeover.