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Living with Jellyfish: Management and Adaptation Strategies

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Jellyfish Blooms

Abstract

While jellyfish are some of the most ancient multicellular organisms on Earth, man only started to take notice of their impact on human activity and enterprise from about the 1960s. In some regions of the world, jellyfish blooms impose considerable socio-economic hardship to net-based fisheries, aquaculture, power generation and tourism. Blooms are likely to be difficult if not impossible to eradicate, but these industries are striving to develop management strategies that will enable them to successfully coexist with blooms. This chapter reviews the detrimental effects that jellyfish have on society and human wellbeing. We also summarise adaptation and management strategies that are currently being developed and utilised by fishing, power generation and tourism industries to educate and inform the public and manage the actual jellyfish blooms and help ensure the financial viability of these industries in regions that experience blooms.

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Acknowledgements

Part of this chapter was presented by CHL at the Fundación BBVA-funded debate ‘El papel global de las medusas y su aumento en el océano’ held in Madrid, September 2011. CHL would like to thank Prof. Carlos Duarte for allowing us to publish an expanded version of it in this book. CHL, SG and SU would like to thank the NCEAS ‘Global expansion of jellyfish blooms Working Group’ where many of the ideas of this chapter were discussed and Dr Tom Doyle and an anonymous reviewer for providing useful comments and in particular additional information on mitigation measures used by the salmon aquaculture industry.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Oceanography Centre Southampton, University of Southampton, Waterfront Campus, European Way, Southampton, SO14 3ZH, UK

    Cathy H. Lucas

  2. Laboratorio Internacional en Cabio Global (CSIC-PUC) and Centro de Conservacion Marina, Departamento de Ecologia, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Cassilla 114-D, Cassilla, Chile

    Stefan Gelcich

  3. Graduate School of Biosphere Science, Hiroshima University, 4-4 Kagamiyama 1 Chome, Higashi-Hiroshima, 739-8528, Japan

    Shin-Ichi Uye

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  1. Cathy H. Lucas
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  2. Stefan Gelcich
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  3. Shin-Ichi Uye
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Correspondence to Cathy H. Lucas .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Australian Rivers Institute and Griffith School of Environment, Griffith University, Griffith, Queensland, Australia

    Kylie A. Pitt

  2. National Oceanography Centre Southampton, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom

    Cathy H. Lucas

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Lucas, C.H., Gelcich, S., Uye, SI. (2014). Living with Jellyfish: Management and Adaptation Strategies. In: Pitt, K., Lucas, C. (eds) Jellyfish Blooms. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7015-7_6

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