Gelatinous zooplankton

Gelatinous zooplankton are fragile animals that live in the

As prey

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Jellyfish are slow swimmers, and most species form part of the plankton. Traditionally jellyfish have been viewed as trophic dead ends, minor players in the marine food web, gelatinous organisms with a

Pelagic siphonophores

siphonophore

Bathyphysa conifera

, sometimes called the flying spaghetti monster

• 
  Gelatinous zooplankton like this

  pelagic food webs
• 
  Solmissus ingesting a salp chain

• 
  armhook squid
• 
  mysid

  in its gut

Jelly pump

Biological oceanic processes, primarily carbon production in the

Jelly carbon

The global biomass of gelatinous zooplankton (sometimes referred to as jelly‐C) within the upper 200 m of the ocean amounts to 0.038

Ocean carbon export is typically estimated from the flux of sinking particles that are either caught in sediment traps [47] or quantified from videography,^[48] and subsequently modeled using sinking rates.^[49] Biogeochemical models ^[50][51][52] are normally parameterized using particulate organic matter data (e.g., 0.5–1,000 μm marine snow and fecal pellets) that were derived from laboratory experiments ^[53] or from sediment trap data.^[50] These models do not include jelly‐C (except larvaceans,^[54][55] not only because this carbon transport mechanism is considered transient/episodic and not usually observed, and mass fluxes are too big to be collected by sediment traps,^[27] but also because models aim to simplify the biotic compartments to facilitate calculations. Furthermore, jelly‐C deposits tend not to build up at the seafloor over a long time, such as phytodetritus (Beaulieu, 2002), being consumed rapidly by demersal and benthic organisms ^[41] or decomposed by microbes.^[42] The jelly‐C sinking rate is governed by organism size, diameter, biovolume, geometry,^[56] density,^[57] and drag coefficients.^[58] In 2013, Lebrato et al. determined the average sinking speed of jelly‐C using Cnidaria, Ctenophora, and Thaliacea samples, which ranged from 800 to 1,500 m day−1 (salps: 800–1,200 m day−1; scyphozoans: 1,000–1,100 m d−1; ctenophores: 1,200–1,500 m day−1; pyrosomes: 1,300 m day−1).^[59] Jelly‐C model simulations suggest that, regardless of taxa, higher latitudes are more efficient corridors to transfer jelly‐C to the seabed owing to lower remineralization rates.^[60] In subtropical and temperate regions, significant decomposition takes place in the water column above 1,500 m depth, except in cases where jelly‐C starts sinking below the thermocline. In shallow‐water coastal regions, time is a limiting factor, which prevents remineralization while sinking and results in the accumulation of decomposing jelly‐C from a variety of taxa on the seabed. This suggests that gelatinous zooplankton transfer most biomass and carbon to the deep ocean, enhancing coastal carbon fluxes via DOC and DIC, fueling microbial and megafaunal/macrofaunal scavenging communities. However, the absence of satellite‐derived jelly‐C measurements (such as primary production) ^[61] and the limited number of global zooplankton biomass data sets make it challenging to quantify global jelly‐C production and transfer efficiency to the ocean's interior.^[11]

Monitoring

Because of its fragile structure, image acquisition of gelatinous zooplankton requires the assistance of

• 
  hydrozoan found in the Arctic Ocean at depths below 1,000 m (3,300 ft).^[63]
• 
  The salp, another example of a gelatinous tunicate, is often found in the form of a colonial chain

See also

• Sea snot

References