Gelatinous Organism Observations.

Placeholder Show Content

Abstract/Contents

Abstract
This study tests the validity of examining the distribution of jellyfish and gelatinous plankton in the Pacific equatorial currents through the use of visual footage. Given the difficulty of studying gelatinous organisms through net tows and the high costs of using a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) to track jellies, a GoPro camera was towed on a batwing to film gelatinous organisms in situ. An automated program for tracking jellies, The Jelly Counter, was tested on the footage, and manual organism counts were also taken by eye. The data gathered demonstrated that in situ videos from a forward- facing camera can be used to answer biological questions about gelatinous organisms. Data was taken at six different stations between the South Equatorial Current (SEC) and the North Pacific Gyre. The study analyzed organism abundance across stations, across depths within stations, and in relation to chlorophyll-A data. Organism density increased significantly north of the equator approaching the North Equatorial Current (NEC) and the Oxygen Minimum Zone (OMZ), and depths with higher concentrations of gelatinous organisms appeared to exhibit less fluorescence. Corresponding meter net tows also verified the new method’s ability to detect patterns in gelatinous organism density. If further standardized to ensure consistent data, high quality GoPro video recordings towed on a batwing can become a viable mode of counting gelatinous organisms in the future.

Description

Type of resource text
Date created June 13, 2015

Creators/Contributors

Author Jue, Kylie
Author Prior-Palmer, Lara

Subjects

Subject gelatinous plankton
Subject plankton ecology
Subject oxygen minimum zone
Subject Stanford@SEA
Subject S-259
Subject Hopkins Marine Station
Subject Department of Biology
Subject Department of Earth System Science
Subject BIOHOPK 182H
Subject BIOHOPK 323H
Subject EARTHSYS 323
Subject ESS 323
Genre Article

Bibliographic information

Access conditions

Use and reproduction
User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY).

Preferred citation

Preferred Citation
Jue, Kylie and Prior-Palmer, Lara. 2015. Gelatinous Organism Observations. Unpublished student research paper, S-259, Stanford@SEA, Stanford Digital Repository. https://purl.stanford.edu/sw827xp3684

Collection

Contact information

Also listed in

Loading usage metrics...