Community Portal

Welcome to the community portal. During the 3rd Jellyfish Blooms conference in Mar del Plata, 14-16 July 2010, an initiative began to increase coordination of research across the community. The goal is to rapidly collect data to answer major questions about or involving jellyfish. Below is an incomplete shortlist of areas considered for priority initiatives. Please add additional initiatives or comment iphone photography on existing initiatives, add your name to express interest in contributing to one or more of initiatives or to contribute or coordinate a regional node (or global node for proposals to your funding agency that would enhance global efforts). As the ideas coalesce, we will begin to convert the list into one or more grant proposals with broad community involvement.

Priority Areas

Phylogeny

Coordinate efforts among multiple labs to generate as complete phylogeny of jellyfish (Scyphozoa, Ctenophores, Hydromedusae and siphonophores) as possible. Needs:

 specimens (as many species as possible) preserved in ethanol and formalin,
 priority list of target taxa; resample geographically and temporally to detect cryptic species,
 list of target loci: COI, 16S, 28S, 18S, CaM ...

Ecology

Shortlist of environmental and biological variables to describe in as many populations as possible to answer questions of which jellyfish 'outbreak' in what circumstances. What causes outbreaks?

 overfishing 
 translocations  (see Ecology #1)
 eutrophication 
 habitat modification (coastal development)
 climate change

Species Identification

'#1 Regional labs sequence 3 specimens per species per location sent by ecologists working in field.

Polyps

'Find and study polyps in the wild.

Jellyfish Society

'Establish a scientific society to support the activities started by the jellyfish blooms conferences.

Other

Link with existing networks in parasitology - http://parasite.org.au/arcnet/ Archive relevant literature (especially old literature).

Structure

Global nodes

'Dawson (UC Merced) for usa nsf phylogenetics / population genetics oriented proposals

Regional nodes

'North America West, shallow-water, California & Baja California & western Mexico - Dawson, Gomez Daglio (UC Merced) for phylogenetics / population genetics / evolutionary ecology