April 7, 201016 yr Coming to a beach near you? The highly venomous purple jellyfish swarming into British waters By Daily Mail Reporter Last updated at 2:05 PM on 07th April 2010 Comments (37) Add to My Stories Swarms of highly venomous jellyfish are increasingly moving into waters off the British coast, say researchers. The growing presence of the lethal mauve stingers - Pelagia noctiluca in Latin - is being attributed to a rise in sea temperatures. The jellyfish are tiny but can cover hundreds of thousands of square miles in one 'bloom' and are normally found in the Mediterranean and Caribbean. But they are now swarming far more frequently into waters in the North-East Atlantic as sea temperatures are rising and currents are changing, scientists have discovered. These pink purplish creatures can devastate fish farms and in one incident 100,000 salmon were killed by them STING IN THE TAIL The jellyfish use their sting to capture food and as a way of defending themselves. This can cause painful stings to bathers but are lethal to larger fish when they move in great numbers. In 2007, an enormous 10 square mile swarm of billions of the jellyfish wiped out a 100,000-fish salmon farm in Northern Ireland, causing around £1million in damages. These pink purplish creatures can devastate fish farms and in one incident 100,000 salmon were killed by them. Mauve stingers 'bloom' when they move into waters where there is plentiful food, and the North-East Atlantic has bountiful supplies of plankton and young fish. They are also thought to breed more quickly in warmer waters and the seas off the British coast have warmed by up to one degrees Celsius since 2002. More... Spring is arriving 12 days earlier (but keep your coat handy this year)Raven invasion: Birds flock back to England after a century in exileGiant fruit-eating lizard species that lives in trees discovered in Philippines A study published in the journal 'Biology Letters' has shown how experts researching plankton have made the discovery. And the trend may continue if climate change follows the predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. While people bathing in the waters off the UK coast are in no serious danger yet from the Pelagia noctiluca, fish farms and other businesses could be affected. The study was led by Dr Priscilla Licando at the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science, and Dr Richard Kirby, a Royal Society Research Fellow at the University of Plymouth. Dr Kirby said: 'By studying plankton samples we have shown that the warm-water jellyfish called Pelagia noctiluca appears to be the main species present in our samples when large blooms of jellyfish occur in the North-East Atlantic. 'We believe that an increase in sea temperature is likely to influence jellyfish abundance by affecting their reproduction. 'It is already known that Pelagia noctiluca and similar jellyfish reproduce more quickly in warmer waters. 'Predictions of global climate change suggest that the seas around our coasts will continue to warm. 'Climate driven changes in sea surface currents could carry more Pelagia noctiluca into coastal seas where food resources are higher, promoting jellyfish blooms. 'Jellyfish are important predators in the plankton where they can influence the number of juvenile fish that survive to become adults. 'Since Pelagia noctiluca is also a highly venomous species it can be detrimental to fish farms by killing large numbers of fish when it reaches high densities. 'They can also make bathing waters dangerous, but that is more of an issue in the Mediterranean at present.' Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1264147/Venomous-purple-jellyfish-swarming-Britain-warn-experts.html#ixzz0kQNht9ki
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