Jellyfish armageddon

Odd that this should be reported from one of the great promoters of climate change denial, so of course acidification and climate change would have nothing to do with it.

Jellyfish armageddon! Experts claim creatures are taking over the seas - and it might be too late to stop them

• Experts claim the jellyfish could be more dangerous than first thought
• Last week, jellyfish shut down one of the world’s largest nuclear reactors
• Scientists believe their increase is down to human activity in the ocean.

Daily Mail,

18 October, 2013

They are made of 95 per cent water and have no brain, but some experts fear a jellyfish invasion could be on the way.

Last week, a wave of jellyfish forced one of the world’s largest nuclear reactors to shut down - a phenomenon that marine biologists believe could become more common.

Experts are now claiming the creatures could be more dangerous than first thought, wreaking havoc in our oceans, posing a threat to human life and blocking up large coastal structures.

And they now believe it may now be too late to stop them.





Mauve stinger jellyfish killed 100,000 farmed salmon in Northern Ireland in 2007. Meanwhile a trawler sunk after its crew tried to haul a net full of jellyfish in Japan in 2009

A study by University of British Columbia in Canada last year found increasing jellyfish populations in 62 per cent of the areas they looked at, including East Asia, the Black Sea, Hawaii and Antarctica.



On Sunday, operators of the Oskarshamn nuclear plant in southeastern Sweden had to scramble a reactor at the nuclear plant after jellyfish clogged the pipes that bring in cool water to the plant’s turbines.

By Tuesday, the pipes had been cleaned of the jellyfish and engineers were preparing to restart the reactor, which at 1,400 megawatts of output is the largest boiling-water reactor in the world.





Last week, a wave of moon jellyfish forced one of the world's largest nuclear reactors to shut down - a phenomenon that marine biologists believe could become more common





Giant jellyfish (Nemopilema nomurai) interfere with fishing in Japan. The problem, claim experts, could be largely caused by human activity in the oceans


The particular jellyfish in question, known as a ‘moon jellyfish’, aren’t particular threatening on their own, but in swarms they are causing real concern for engineers.


And this isn’t the first time it’s happened. Last year the California-based Diablo Canyon facility had to shut its reactor two after a gelatinous, jellyfish-like organism clogged intake pipes.

In 2005, the first unit at Oskarshamn was temporarily turned off due to a sudden jellyfish influx.

The problem, claim experts, could be largely caused by human activity in the oceans.

Up until now, complex ecosystems arewhat have kept the jellyfish at bay. However, human involvement and manipulation have catapulted their growth and helped their numbers to explode.




Map of population trends of native and invasive species of jellyfish. Red shows an increase (high certainty); orange: increase (low certainty); green stable/variable; blue decrease, grey: no data. Circles represent jellyfish populations with relative sizes reflecting confidence in the data

Plastic bags and drift lines may destroy the few natural jellyfish predators, like sea turtles. Jellyfish also use hard litter, like industrial waste, to form expansive nurseries.

Overfishing anchovies, which compete with jellyfish for food, are also thought to have created swarms of the sea creatures in South Africa.

Lisa-ann Gershwin's book 'Stung! On Jellyfish and the Future of the Oceans,' describes the danger jellyfish pose and how they have overrun various ecosystems. Much of the species' success, she says is based on their life cycle.






Oskarshamn, southeastern Sweden closed O3 the largest boiling-water reactor in the world, as a result of the jellyfish invasion

'Hermaphroditism. Cloning. External fertilisation. Self fertilisation. Courtship and copulation. Fission. Fusion. Cannibalism. You name it, jellyfish [are] "doing it,"' she writes.

One jellyfish, the Mnemiopsis, is able to lay eggs when it is just 13 days old without needing a mate. It soon is able to lay 10,000 eggs per day. It also can eat over ten times its own body weight in food and can double in size each day.

Another species, the zombie jelly, is seemingly immortal. When its particles disintegrate, cells escape and form an entirely new jelly. This period of growth happens within five days.

The damage may be permanent, Gershwin said. 'I think I underestimated how severely we have damaged our oceans and their inhabitants. I now think that we have pushed them too far [...] without us knowing the precise moment it all became irreversible.'