CIESM Workshop Series, n°14:

Gelatinous zooplankton outbreaks: theory and practice
Naples, Italy, 29 August - 1st September 2001, 112 p. (240 ref.)

In recent years massive outbreaks of gelatinous species, such as Aurelia aurita or Pelagia noctiluca (in the Mediterranean) and Mnemiopsis leidyi (in the Black Sea), have attracted much public atttention. However, since gelatinous outbreaks are often sporadic and of short duration, they tend to catch the scientific community off guard and discourage systematic long term studies. This, added to major difficulties in sampling and culturing these fragile organisms, limits our current understanding of the triggering conditions, dynamics and ecological impact of such events. Many "basic" questions remain a matter of debate. For instance the time/space scale of such episodes; the extent to which gelatinous outbreaks are favoured by climatic triggers, physical forcing, or disequilibrium conditions linked with eutrophication and/or overfishing; the design of appropriate data sets and monitoring protocols. Among the many unresolved challenges confronting researchers, the tasks of tracking the complex life stages of these organisms, identifying their function in benthic-planktonic coupling, and assessing their proper role and importance in food web models, are not the least.
During the course of their four-day meeting, the participants extensively covered such ground; their latest views and hypotheses, along with an extensive bibliography on the subject, will be found in this latest volume of the CIESM Workshop Series.

This volume, fully illustrated and rich in references, is available in print from our on-line bookstore.

You may also download the Executive Summary

This book is protected by international copyright law.

Contents:

I - Executive summary
by Ferdinando Boero and Frederic Briand, with contributions by Quentin Bone, Gabriel Gorsky and Tim Wyatt.
1. Introduction
2. Background
3. Dynamics of outbreaks
4. Triggering mechanisms of outbreaks
5. Impact of gelatinous massive events
6. Urgent practical needs

II - Workshop communications

1 - Dynamics of outbreaks: topological, spatial and physical constraints
- Conditions for blooming of pelagic species.
Paul Nival and Gabriel Gorsky

- Topology and dynamics of plankton networks: are pelagic ecosystems robust?
Tim Wyatt, Maurizio Ribera d´Alcala and Ferenc Jordán

- The effects of physics on the distribution of plankton at various scales.
Alex Lascaratos, G. Petihakis, G. Triantafyllou and G. Korres

- Physico-biological coupling and plankton blooms: a modelling approach.
Geneviève Lacroix and Paul Nival

2 - Tunicate outbreaks
- Appendicularian outbreaks: accidents or rule?
Jose Luis Acuña

- Changes in pelagic tunicate abundance and possible ecological consequences.
Quentin Bone

- Aggregations and outbreaks of appendicularians
Gabriel Gorsky, Richard L. Miller and Paul Nival

- Interannual variations of some species of gelatinous zooplankton (Siphonophora and Thaliacea) in a coastal long-term series in the North-Western Mediterranean
P. Licandro, J.C. Braconnot, C. Carré, S. Dallot, M. Etienne, F. Ibanez, and M. Moitié

3 - Jellyfish outbreaks
- Adriatic ecological history: a link between jellyfish outbreaks, red tides, mass mortalities, overfishing, mucilages, and thaliacean plankton?
Ferdinando Boero

- Jellyfish outbreaks: natural cycle or stress response effect?
Adam Benovic and Davor Lucic

- Erratic fluctuations in abundance of medusoid and cnetophores populations in two systems, Ligurian Sea and Benguela ecosystem: some examples.
Emmanuelle Buecher

- Are irregular plankton phenomena getting more frequent in the northern Adriatic Sea?
Alenka Malej

- Past and present anthropogenic factors promoting the invasion, colonization and dominance by jellyfish of a Spanish coastal lagoon.
Francesc Pagès

4 - Black Sea: Mnemiopsis et al. ...
- Distribution of gelatinous macrozooplankton and ecosystem change in the Black Sea.
Erhan Mutlu

- Impact of the invaders ctenophores Mnemiopsis leidyi and Beroe ovata on the pelagic food web and biodiversity of the Black Sea.
Tamara Shiganova

- The catastrophic invasion of the Black Sea by Mnemiopsis leidyi: is it only doing what other ctenophores did long ago?
G. Richard Harbison

- Opportunistic lifestyles of the gelatinous and abundant: what gives a species "the right stuff"?
Patricia Kremer

III - Bibliographic references

IV - List of participants