How Much Gelatinous Biomass is there in the Global Ocean Seminar

Using the Jellyfish Database Initiative (JEDI), ~92,000 quantitative abundance records for Cnidaria, Ctenophora and Thaliacea from 1934 to 2011 have been converted into carbon biomass using published biometric equations, and the spatial distribution of gelatinous zooplankton biomass in the upper 200m of the global ocean mapped into 5o grid cells and Longhurst biogeochemical provinces. Potential latitudinal and environmental drivers governing the observed spatial trends have been assessed using GLM and SLM analyses. The results show that gelatinous zooplankton are present throughout the world's oceans, with global geometric mean and geometric standard deviation of biomass is 0.53 ± 16.62 mg C m-3, corresponding to a global biomass of 38.3 Tg C in the upper mixed layer of the ocean. Although subject to sampling bias, greatest maximum biomass and variability are found in coastal and shelf regions in the northern hemisphere, indicating that these areas experience large and possibly blooming populations. Nevertheless, the presence of gelatinous zooplankton across the complete global spectra of temperature, chlorophyll a and dissolved oxygen values suggest that evolution has delivered a range of species able to adapt to all available ecological niches.