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Upside-down jellyfish as bioindicators of anthropogenic disturbances in coastal ecosystems

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 4, page 214 (2023)Cite this article

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Coastal environments are experiencing sea level rise, warming and acidification alongside pollution from upland watersheds, coastal cities, and industrial development. These impacts are global, but solutions and mitigation must be enacted locally, requiring a reliable and straightforward way to monitor impacted areas. Bioindicators can provide essential information to design mitigation and restoration practices.

Changes in population size and recruitment are monitored bi-monthly over a 10 m × 25 m plot selected a priori, across either transects or random quadrat tosses using a 1 m2 through the site. Percentage coverage is estimated using a photogrammetric approach where videos and pictures are taken to be analysed after field expeditions to maximize field time.

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  • 16 May 2023

    In the version of this article initially published, a photo credit was missing and has now been restored in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

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  1. College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, FL, USA

    Natalia B. López-Figueroa

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  1. Natalia B. López-Figueroa
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Correspondence to Natalia B. López-Figueroa.

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López-Figueroa, N.B. Upside-down jellyfish as bioindicators of anthropogenic disturbances in coastal ecosystems. Nat Rev Earth Environ 4, 214 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-023-00415-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-023-00415-y

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