La variabilité inter et intra-annuelle des méduses en Baie de Calvi

During the last decade, there has been a dramatic increase in jellyfish biomass all over the world. They are infamous for their negative effects on humans. Indeed, they interfere with the tourism by stinging swimmers, with the fishing by clogging nets, with the aquaculture by killing the fishes in net-pens and with the power plants by obstructing cooling-water intake railings. They also have indirect effects on fisheries by feeding on zooplankton and ichthyoplankton, and, therefore, are predators and potential competitors for fishes. The temporal and horizontal distributions of Medusae in the Bay of Calvi were investigated by an analysis of weekly planktonic time series (2003-2008) collected at STARESO, University of Liege’s Oceanographic field station located in Corsica (FRANCE). Firstly, our study showed similar seasonal standards throughout the year for the majority of jellyfish communities. However, we noticed an important fluctuation in quantity from year to year. Secondly, we focused on the two most common species of jellyfish found in this area; the calycophoran siphonophore, Chelophyes appendiculata (Eschscholtz, 1829) and the scyphozoan medusa Pelagia noctiluca (Forskal, 1775). The life cycle of Chelophyes appendiculata was established by using the different stages found during diverse periods into our samples and seemed to be correlated with the temperature of the water. The analysis of the spatial distribution of Pelagia noctiluca emphasizes the fact that during the 2006 bloom; most of the organisms were located far away from the coastlines where they were forming active swarms of 200 m of length with 5 to 10 individuals per m³. In the swarms, the individuals are healthy and swim actively in the upper layer (10 to 60 m) of the water with tentacles extended, probably in order to catch the food. The swarms are generally close to wind’s protected areas where the turbulences of the surface are reduced and zooplankton is accumulating. The year following a high zooplankton biomass was characterized by an increase of the number of jellyfishes. We can thus conclude that the overgrowth of adult jellyfishes seems to be related with the availability of zooplankton communities