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In situ observations of Stygiomedusa gigantea
Citation
Mark C. Benfield and William M. Graham [date accessed]. In situ observations of Stygiomedusa gigantea in the Gulf of Mexico with a review of its global distribution and habitat. https://doi.org/10.15468/ixtssp
Contact: Van de Putte, Anton

Access data
Archived data
Availability: Creative Commons License This dataset is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Description
Data on In situ observations of Stygiomedusa gigantea in the Gulf of Mexico over 2005 – 2009 by industrial remotely operated vehicles as part of the SERPENT Project. This dataset was provided by Dhugal Lindsay (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC)). The data is extracted from a paper by Mark C. Benfield (Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, Louisiana State University) and William M. Graham (Dauphin Island Sea Lab and University of South Alabama). more

Four individuals of the large scyphozoan jellyfish Stygiomedusa gigantea were observed in the northern Gulf of Mexico over 2005 – 2009 by industrial remotely operated vehicles as part of the SERPENT Project. One of these observations included the symbiotic Bythitid fish Thalassobathia pelagica. Prior to these observations, neither S. gigantea nor T. pelagica had been observed in, or collected from the Gulf of Mexico. In order to summarize the available information on S. gigantea, we located 110 observations obtained over 110 years (1899 – 2009) representing 118 individual specimens of this species from around the world. The resulting dataset confirms that this species is cosmopolitan occurring with records from all Oceans except the Arctic. While the depth range of the four Gulf of Mexico specimens was bathypelagic, there appears to be a pattern of S. gigantea occurring in mesopelagic and epipelagic depth zones at high latitudes, particularly in the Southern Ocean and mesopelagic and bathypelagic depths at mid- and low-latitudes. This pattern may be related to the meridional vertical distribution of temperature or perhaps avoidance of light levels that could degrade porphyrin pigments. There was no evidence that this species migrates vertically. Two of the individuals in the Gulf of Mexico appeared to be actively clinging to subsea structures and we speculate that this is a consequence of its normal mode of feeding which may entail using its large oral lobes to hold on to, and trap prey.

Scope
Themes:
Biology > Invertebrates
Keywords:
Marine/Coastal, Abundance, Behaviour, Distribution, Remotely operated vehicles, PS, Southern Ocean, Scyphozoa

Geographical coverage
PS, Southern Ocean [Marine Regions]

Temporal coverage
1899 - 2009
Unknown

Taxonomic coverage
Scyphozoa [WoRMS]

Parameters
Abundance
Count
Occurrence of biota
Presence of biota

Contributors
Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)data manager
Fiankan, Davy
Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut voor Natuurwetenschappen (IRScNB/KBIN)data creatordata manager
Danis, Bruno
Fiankan, Davy
Louisiana State University; Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences (DOCS)data creator
Benfield, Mark
Dauphin Island Sea Labdata creator
Graham, William
Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC)data provider
Lindsay, Dhugal
Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut voor Natuurwetenschappen; Operationele Directie Natuurlijk Milieu (OD Natuur)
Van de Putte, Anton

Related datasets
Published in:
AntOBIS: Antarctic Ocean Biodiversity Information System
(Partly) included in:
RAS: Register of Antarctic Species

Dataset status: Completed
Data type: Data
Data origin: Literature research
Metadatarecord created: 2010-02-11
Information last updated: 2019-04-09
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