Jellyfish are taking over the world ocean, replacing fish. The fish-jellyfish transition is being perceived at the level of the public due to dramatic increases in stung people, impairment of fisheries (due to predation on fish eggs and larvae and on the crustacean prey of the fish juveniles), clogging of cooling systems of coastal firms such as desalinization plants, and power plants, impact on cage aquaculture. These impacts are widely reported by the media all over the world at an unprecedented pace but, in the scientific literature, these events are reported in a scattered way and have been labeled as "unsubstantiated" in a recent paper on Bioscience (Condon et al. 2012). This lack of "substance" in scientific reports is due to lack of research in this field. Gelatinous plankton is erratic in its presence patterns. Jellies can be present in the billions at a certain place, in a given moment, and suddenly disappear, to re-appear somewhere else. Programming field work to substantiate these events is difficult, and remote sensing is not very effective to document gelatinous plankton blooms. Direct observation is the main way to study these pehnomena. But it is very difficult to have scientists watching extensive areas for very long time periods. To cope with this situation, we launched the Jellywatch project in Italy (the name is Occhio alla Medusa) an initiative that stemmed within the framework of the Mediterranean Commission (CIESM). The campaign aimed at using the citizens as "sensors of jellyfish" in Italian waters: the 8.500 km of Italian coast are highly frequented by tourists, fishermen, and people at large. The initiative started in 2009, with the preparation of a poster figuring the main gelatinous plankters of the Mediterranean (4.000 copies were printed), with a request of records through email messages to boero@unisalento.it. In 2010, the campaign was adopted by the popular science magazine Focus, that printed the poster as a centerfold and dedicated several articles to the initiative (with an average of 400.000 sold copies). Focus also gave the campaign a space in its web page http://www.focus.it/meduse/ containing data sheets on each species and forms to upload the records. The data were uploaded on a GIS- based system and meteomedusa was launched. Meteomedusa reports, on a map of the Italian coast, the records sent by the citizens that, in this way, can check were the gelatinous species have been recorded in the previous days. The records are kept for the whole period and the history of the presences can be reconstructed. The campaign continued also in 2011, when an application for the iPhone and Android was launched, allowing to check meteomedusa and to send records directly from smartphones. 26.000 apps were downloaded. The results of the campaigns led to the record of new species for the Mediterranean (e.g. Catostylus tagi) and for the Western Mediterranean (Mnemiopsis leydi, Phyllorhiza punctata). Furthermore, it became evident that the various species were not distributed evenly, each sea of Italy being characterized by different jellyfish. The western seas (Ligurian and Tyrrhenian seas) were mostly characterized by Pelagia noctiluca, whereas the eastern seas, and in particular the Adriatic sea, were characterized by Aurelia aurita and Carybdea marsupialis. Cothylorhiza and Rhizostoma were present along the whole coast. Species that were very abundant in 2010, did not show up in 2011, such as Velella velella. Physalia physalis was reported extensively from the western Mediterranean, where it even led to a casualty, in Sardinia.
The records arrived in the thousands, and the media were very attracted by this initiative, including Time magazine, that dedicated a cover article to it, when Mnemiopsis was first recorded in the Western Mediterranean, and another one in the online issue, highlighting the new “passion” for jellyfish that ensued our initiative. National televisions covered the event extensively, with an attendance that reached several million people, in every kind of media.
The initiative is being spread to other Mediterranean states and, meanwhile, three projects of the European Union (Vectors, Sesame, and CoCoNet) are supporting the initiative in some form, with the aim of expanding the Italian experience to the whole Mediterranean.
The availability of funds for research, however, cannot replace the help of the citizens since it is impossible to watch extensive areas for extensive periods. Scientific research is focusing on the genetic characterization of the various populations of jellyfish, on their trophic position in food webs, on their life cycle patterns, but the estimation of their abundance is better done with the help of citizens. The newly recorded species, furthermore, were identified from pictures taken by citizens and sent to us. They could not identify the specimens from our poster and became curious about their “discoveries”, asking for our advice. Some species have been found in great quantities after the first record, and this confirmed the reliability of the citizen scientists.
Children became very engaged in this experiment. One wrote that he and his friends rescue the jellyfish when they become stranded! Others thanked because they learnt which jellies are bad stingers and which ones can be approached with low risk of being stung and, based on this, they could observe these beautiful creatures in their environment.
This experiment not only substantiated the presence of gelatinous plankton along the coasts of Italy but it also started to modify the perception of jellyfish in the lay people, sparking curiosity and admiration for life forms that usually just elicit terror.