Author:
Newell Caroline L.,Durand John R.,Meek Mariah H.,Moyle Peter B.
Abstract
Black Sea jellyfish love to travel. Far from their original home in the Black Sea of Southeastern Europe, Black Sea jellyfish have come to the San Francisco Estuary. Since these jellyfish first started regularly appearing in fishing nets in the early 1980s, scientists have been finding more and more of them in the San Francisco Estuary. Over the past 40 years, our lab has tracked the numbers of Black Sea jellyfish in a part of the Estuary called the Suisun Marsh. Over this time, we have observed increasing amounts of jellies, with the highest amount ever recorded caught in 2019. What does this mean for the San Francisco Estuary and its other current residents? This is a question we will explore in this article.