I, For One, Welcome Our New Jellyfish Overlords

It could be a plot of a (bad) science-fiction film: a man-made disaster creates spawns of millions upon millions of jellyfish which rapidly take over the ocean. Humans, starving for mahi-mahi and Chilean seabass, turn to jellyfish, which becomes the new tuna (after the tuna fishery has collapsed, of course). Fish sticks become jelly-sticks, and fish-and-chips becomes jelly-and-chips. The sci-fi film could end with the ominous image of a jellyfish evolving terrestrial limbs and pulling itself onto land—readying itself for a new conquest.

While this scenario sounds ridiculous, all of it—except the last sentence, of course—could conceivably come to pass. Dr. Anthony Richardson calls this the ‘jellyfish joyride’ and it is already happening in parts of the ocean: diverse fish populations are being replaced by jellyfish. "Dense jellyfish aggregations can be a natural feature of healthy ocean ecosystems, but a clear picture is now emerging of more severe and frequent jellyfish outbreaks worldwide,” Richardson, from the University of Queensland and CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship, explains. "In recent years, jellyfish blooms have been recorded in the Mediterranean, the Gulf of Mexico, the Black and Caspian Seas, the Northeast US coast, and particularly in Far East coastal waters.”

Once jellyfish gain a foothold, Richardson says that if conditions are right they can establish a massive population at the expense of other ocean life: “the problem is that jellyfish might form an alternative ‘stable state’. What this means is that parts of the ocean might switch from being dominated by fish to being dominated by jellyfish.” In a new study appearing in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Richardson and colleagues explore the causes behind the jellyfish infestation and the need for swift, decisive action to stem the jellyfish take-over. Jellyfish explosions are linked directly to human actions, including over-fishing, the input of fertilizer and sewage into the ocean, and climate change.

Overfishing has removed fish from marine ecosystems at astounding rates. According to Richardson this has opened the door for jellyfish to take their place: “this is because small fish (e.g. anchovy, sardine, herring) appear to keep jellyfish in check by predation (on jellyfish when they are very small) and competition (for the same zooplankton food). So, once we remove fish, jellyfish can proliferate.” As an example Richardson points to Namibia where "intense fishing has decimated sardine stocks and jellyfish have replaced them as the dominant species.”

EDIT

http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0615-hance_jellyfish.html

x(

It seems that the future is going to hate you...and me...and all of our descendants.

We're screwn.

http://rigint.blogspot.com/2008/03/deep-ones-and-madness-of-crowds.html

Conspiracy author Jeff Wells made a post about this some time ago, worth reading for his unique conspiracy-poetic writing style.

Otherwise our enemies will get the jump on us, and we cannot allow a jellyfish gap. - with thanks to Gen. Buck Turgidson for the inspiration

....oh shit....

:scared:

for jellyfish mac and cheese casserole.