ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Ecol. Evol.
Sec. Ecophysiology
This article is part of the Research TopicLife Cycles and Reproductive Strategies in MedusozoaView all articles
Floating primary polyps of Nemopilema nomurai on detritus: effects of abiotic factors on their resettlement and subsequent growth
Provisionally accepted
- 1Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Qingdao, China
- 2Shandong University, Jinan, China
- 3Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, China
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Studies on the formation process and physio-ecological characteristics of primary polyps would help understand the causes of giant jellyfish Nemopilema nomurai blooms in the coastal sea of East Asia. A new mode of settlement and metamorphosis from planulae into primary polyps was observed in this study by artificially breeding N. nomurai polyps in a large tank. N. nomurai planulae could successfully metamorphose into primary polyps with ≤4 tentacles in the seawater, even though they did not firstly colonize the hard substrates as previously reported. The developed primary polyps were then able to hang upside down on the detritus via the mucus secreted by planulae and float on the seawater surface. Their resettlement on the large hard substrates showed significant preference to plastic materials (e.g., polyethylene plates), however, the resettlement density was significantly reduced owing to the increase of age. The resettlement of primary polyps was also affected by the combination of salinity and age. The survival of primary polyps increased, but their resettlement percentage significantly decreased at hyposalinity 10-23 and older age. This study also found that the primary polyps on the detritus could normally develop into individuals with 16 tentacles. There was no significant difference among their survival, development of 14-16 tentacles and calyx growth among salinity 15-33, indicating their euryhalinity adaptability. This study suggested that floating in the seawater by attaching to detritus was a possible living mode of N. nomurai polyps inhabiting estuaries surroundings, which may favor polyp population recruitment and maintenance.
Keywords: Primary polyps, Nemopilema nomurai, Planulae, detritus, Resettlement
Received: 27 Aug 2025; Accepted: 28 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Feng, Xu, Mo, Xu, Lin, Wang, Jia and Sun. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Song Feng
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