Angel Yanagihara with a Hawaiian Box Jellyfish. Credit: Angel Yanagihara
An insightful cross-disciplinary workforce of University of Hawai’i (UH) at Mānoa researchers, working for over a decade, revealed a research not too long ago revealing {that a} key variety of dead nights throughout the lunar cycle triggers mature “Hawaiian field jellyfish” (Alatina alata) to swim to leeward O’ahu shores to spawn.
Led by Angel Yanagihara, affiliate analysis professor on the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) and the John A. Burns School of Medicine, researchers on the UH at Mānoa have been fastidiously monitoring native field jellies for over 20 years. While the month-to-month shoreline aggregations are understood to happen like clockwork 8-10 days after every full moon, with jelly forecasts included on the native information, mysteries have remained: Why are they showing at this explicit a part of the lunar cycle? Where do these field jellies come from and the place are they discovered the remainder of the lunar cycle? Why has this grow to be a month-to-month drawback in solely the final 30 years?
With the brand new research, the workforce offered in-depth solutions based mostly upon cutting-edge oceanographic approaches together with nightlong off shore vessel monitoring, pc modeling of native currents and facet scan sonar, in addition to elementary discipline ecology strategies and anatomical microscopy.
The senior scientist workforce of Yanagihara and SOEST oceanography professor Margaret McManus conceived of and commenced this collaborative research ten years in the past ranging from month-to-month field jelly census information collected by the Yanagihara Lab from 1997 to the current.
Postdoctoral analysis and co-author, Christie Wilcox, with a Hawaiian Box Jellyfish. Credit: Angel Yanagihara
“We discovered that the harmful month-to-month shoreline look of the Hawaiian Box Jellyfish, correlates with the precise nights of the lunar month—known as Kāloa within the Hawaiian calendar—with a essential variety of dead nights after sundown and earlier than moonrise,” stated Yanagihara. “We additionally found that all the field jellies comprising the shoreline aggregation have been actively spawning.”
Based on research of 1000’s of beached field jellies, Yanagihara discovered that the gonads have been all replete with gametes or freshly spent—which means they have been nearshore to breed.
“The interval of the lunar cycle with a key variety of dead nights or the ‘absence of sunshine’ cues mature animals to particularly swim to the shore line to spawn,” stated Yanagihara. “Further, as divers monitoring the migration within the water, we confronted a robust south easterly (Diamond Head) present that the field jellies swam efficiently perpendicular to however, we divers with tanks and massive cameras couldn’t. Their swimming velocity and energy was spectacular!”
With McManus’ oceanographic evaluation, the researchers hypothesize that jellies are within the lee of Diamond Head Crater for the remainder of the lunar cycle, benefitting from the shelter and meals offered by the persistent eddy within the research space, which seems to be the “supply level” for the jellyfish or the place the field jellies come from.
Student and co-author, Raechel Kadler, with a Hawaiian Box Jellyfish. Credit: Angel Yanagihara
The UH scientists are addressing problems with significance and concern to residents and vacationers alike who take pleasure in Hawai’i’s coastal waters in addition to of nice significance to different tropical islands with native populations of this similar species Alatina alata. While there are over 40 species of field jellies world large, Alatina alata is the one species that reveals this clockwork lunar spawning migration habits. The workforce additionally studied Alatina alata migrations in Saipan, CMNI and Puerto Rico and Key West, FL. This analysis revealed the distinctive life cycle involving particular shoreline bathymetry options which help persistent anticyclonic eddy options in addition to the lunar set off for spawning and can permit the workforce to additional examine different O’ahu areas the place field jellies haven’t been noticed traditionally however have now grow to be extra widespread equivalent to Pupukea and Kailua.
“This work is essential to the State when it comes to planning and tourism in addition to improved signage, public consciousness and dissemination of evidence-based jellyfish sting care,” stated Yanagihara.
In the longer term, the workforce hopes to proceed these research to mannequin different offshore bay options adjoining to field jelly beaching occasions and to trace inhabitants numbers which might grow to be rising public well being issues for ocean swimmers and seashore goers. Specifically, analysis efforts are being designed to tell and predict, in addition to, to assist information insurance policies to revive meals net stability to maintain field jelly numbers in test in Hawai’i and different tropical localities the place Alatina alata additionally signify a priority for seashore goers.
Moon jellies seem like gobbling up zooplankton in Puget Sound
More info:
A.A. Yanagihara et al, Alatina alata field jellyfish month-to-month migrations in Hawai’i: Lunar and bodily oceanographic triggers, Regional Studies in Marine Science (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.rsma.2022.102380
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University of Hawaii at Manoa
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Where do “Hawaiian field jellies” come from? (2022, May 20)
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