What is it about?

The upside down jellyfish was first detected in the nearshore waters of the Hawaiian Islands shortly after WWII. The assumption for many years was that this was a single species introduced inadvertently via movement of military transport and war-fighting vessel traffic, possibly from the Indo-Pacific region of the Philippine Islands.

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Why is it important?

An accurate understanding of the geographic sources of marine invasions provides important information regarding the mechanisms and vectors that lead to translocation of harmful invasive species, and this is helpful in devising plans to prevent such introduction events in the future.

Perspectives

During this investigation we discovered based on our global sampling and application of molecular systematic approach, that there are multiple unnamed biological lineages of upside down jellyfish that were previously unrecognized.

Dr Brenden Holland
Hawaii Pacific University

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Global phylogeography of Cassiopea (Scyphozoa: Rhizostomeae): molecular evidence for cryptic species and multiple invasions of the Hawaiian Islands, Marine Biology, June 2004, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/s00227-004-1409-4.
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