Distinctive body type aids long life and predation

14 hours ago by Sarah Curran-Ragan By incorporating large volumes of water into their bodies, jellyfish are able to grow to a size disproportionately larger than other animals relative to their carbon content. Credit:

Jellyfish (Cnidarian medusa) have unique body plans that violate a universal law of biology and facilitate their longevity and their propensity to form blooms, according to an international study involving UWA scientists.

Most physiological and ecological processes in animals relate to body size and such relationships, called allometrics, predict a broad range of functions in animals.

However jellyfish, exhibit allometric differences that cannot be explained solely by their unusually high water and low carbon content.

UWA Oceans Institute director and co-author Professor Carlos Duarte says, "the differences provide insights into jellyfish's evolutionary and competitive advantages conferred by their unique body plans."

He says the jellyfish's allometrics help to explain their tendency to form spectacular blooms.

The study tested differences in allometric relationships for several key parameters: rates of respiration, excretion, longevity and swimming velocity, between jellyfish and other pelagic (open sea dwelling) animals.

Jellyfish were 3.2 times larger than other pelagics of equivalent carbon content and 2.5 times larger than those of equivalent nitrogen content.

Furthermore, respiration rates were 28 times slower, excretion rates 257 times slower and jellyfish grew 3.5 times faster than other similarly sized pelagic marine animals.

"The study highlights that gelatinous marine organisms differ from other marine organisms in fundamental ways," Prof Duarte says.

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Distinctive body type aids long life and predation