Phylogenetic studies later identified at least 3 valid morphospecies ( A. The moon jellyfish Aurelia aurita (Linnaeus 1758) had been previously described as a nearly cosmopolitan ecological generalist. For these species, the occurrence of jellyfish outbreaks is thought to be directly linked to the ecological success of the benthic stage. Most species of Scyphozoa have a polymorphic life cycle involving a short-living larval stage (planula), a benthic asexual post-larval stage (polyp), and a pelagic sexual stage (medusa). In this context, understanding the biological mechanisms and related environmental envelopes underlying jellyfish outbreaks is crucial to predict and mitigate impacts of recurrent bloom events. In several coastal ecosystems jellyfish may produce major impacts to human activities and ecosystem services, including significant losses in different economic sectors and ecological and societal benefits. Jellyfish outbreaks have been attributed to natural and/or anthropogenic causes, including climate change. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. 266445, FP7th programme), and CERES (Climate Change and European Aquatic Resources, grant n. I-A/1.3/098 - ENPI CBCMED programme), VECTORS (Vectors of Change in Oceans and Seas Marine Life, Impact on Economic Sectors, grant n. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.įunding: SP has received funding from the European Union's projects MED-JELLYRISK (grant n. Received: JanuAccepted: Published: June 14, 2017Ĭopyright: © 2017 Hubot et al. Steele, University of California Irvine, UNITED STATES
(Cnidaria, Scyphozoa) polyps from the Adriatic Sea. Overall, investigations on species-specific eco-physiological and ontogenetic potentials of polyp stages may contribute to clarify the biogeographic distribution of jellyfish and the phylogenetic relationships among evolutionary related sister clades.Ĭitation: Hubot N, Lucas CH, Piraino S (2017) Environmental control of asexual reproduction and somatic growth of Aurelia spp. relicta polyps to escape climatic anomalies associated to warming of surface layers and deepening of isotherms, by moving into deeper, colder layers. relicta polyps to slightly higher temperature (21☌), a previously unknown developmental mode was observed, by the sessile polyp regressing into a dispersive, temporarily unattached and tentacle-less, non-feeding stage. relicta appears to be strongly stenovalent, with cold, marine environmental optimal preferences (salinity 37 ppt, T ranging 14–19☌), corroborating the hypothesis of endemicity within the highly peculiar habitat of the Mljet lake. coerulea across coastal habitats worldwide has been driven by shellfish aquaculture, with scyphistoma polyps and resting stages commonly found on bivalve shells. This may support the hypothesis that the invasion of A. coerulea exhibited a wide physiological plasticity across different temperatures and salinities as typical adaptation to ecological features of transitional coastal habitats. relicta, in terms of budding and podocyst production rates. coerulea showed an overall higher productivity than A. Both species exhibited a shared pattern of budding mode (Directly Budded Polyps: DBP Stolonal Budded Polyps: SBP), with DBP favoured under low food supply (9.3 μg C ind −1 week −1) and low temperature (14☌), and SBP dominant under high temperature (21☌).
relicta, from two Adriatic Sea coastal habitats were incubated under multiple combinations of temperature (14, 21☌), salinity (24, 37 ppt) and food regime (9.3, 18.6, 27.9 μg C ind −1 week −1) to comparatively assess how these factors may influence major asexual reproduction processes in the two species. Polyps of two moon jellyfish species, Aurelia coerulea and A.