By tagging and tracking jellyfish, researchers found they can sense the ocean's current and work to swim against it.
The findings could help researchers determine how jellyfish form "blooms," which can be made up of millions of creatures, Swansea University reported.
"Detecting ocean currents without fixed visual reference points is thought to be close to impossible and is not seen, for example, in lots of migrating vertebrates including birds and turtles," said Swansea University Biosciences Professor Graeme Hays, who is currently with Deakin University in Australia. "Jellyfish are not just bags of jelly drifting passively in the oceans. They are incredibly advanced in their orientation abilities."
To make their findings, the researchers tracked the movements of the jellyfish with GPS and also used GPS-tracked floats to record the current flows. The findings suggest jellyfish can swim at counter-current in response to drift.
Researchers are still unsure of how this fascinating mechanism works, but it is possible the jellyfish can detect the currents across their bodies' surface or indirectly sense the direction of drifts through other unknown methods.
Understanding the distribution of these larger jellyfish blooms collect in the open ocean and predicting occurrences of the problematic phenomenon. The findings could be especially helpful if they are found to apply to other jellyfish species.
Jellyfish play a vital role in the marine ecosystem because they act as prey for a number of larger animals including leatherback seals and turtles, but they can also clog fishing nets and pose a threat to beachgoers.
"Now that we have shown this remarkable behavior by one species, we need to see how broadly it applies to other species of jellyfish. This will allow improved management of jellyfish blooms," Hays concluded.
The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal Current Biology.
