Diet, prey selection, and individual feeding rates of the jellyfish Lychnorhiza lucerna (Scyphozoa, Rhizostomeae)

Feeding Behavior, Shrinking, and the Role of Mucus in the Cannonball Jellyfish Stomolophus sp. 2 in Captivity

“…During feeding, food items were incorporated into two structures: oral arms using multiple mouths with accessory structures (digitata), and scapulets through channels transporting food to the gastric chamber. This type of feeding was documented for other Scyphozoan medusa (L. lucerna and N. nomurai [25,28,50,51]), which have the same feeding structures observed in S. sp. 2.…”

“…Medusae are voracious predator species with various feeding strategies [22][23][24][25]. The feeding process in medusae relates to their anatomy, which results in species-specific differences in capture and ingestion modes.…”

“…Cyanea capillata and Aurelia aurita have been reported to capture prey using tentacles, where prey species are attached and subsequently transported to the oral lobes to be digested [26]. However, Rhizostomae jellyfish, such as Stomolophus meleagris, do not have marginal tentacles; therefore, structures such as the manubrium, oral arms, and scapulets maintain contact with food through the mucus and nematocyst [25,[27][28][29]. Nemopilema nomurai presents pores in the oral arms and scapulets, that limit prey size [28].…”

High-Quality Genome Assembly of Chrysaora quinquecirrha Provides Insights Into the Adaptive Evolution of Jellyfish

“…The increase in the frequency of jellyfish blooms in recent years has also drawn attention due to their potential to transform marine ecosystems (Brotz et al, 2012;Duarte et al, 2013;Pitt and Lucas, 2014). Jellyfish are carnivores that feed on zooplankton, fish eggs, and larvae, and can greatly impact plankton populations when blooms occur (Lilley et al, 2009;Acuña et al, 2011;Marques et al, 2015;Nagata and Morandini, 2018). However, very few animals feed on jellyfish, and thus the large amounts of carbon sequestered within their bodies is not transferred within the food web.…”

Predation of portunid crabs Callinectes sapidus and Callinectes ornatus (Crustacea, Decapoda) on the medusa Lychnorhiza lucerna (Cnidaria, Scyphozoa)

“…Newly released ephyrae were recently found in a Brazilian estuary (Nogueira Jr. et al, 2019), which reinforces the importance of such ecosystems to the species life cycle. L. lucerna is a key consumer of mesozooplankton and captures thousands of prey in their filtrating oral arms (Nagata et al, 2016;Nagata and Morandini, 2018); however, the species' predatory impacts and role in coastal trophodynamics are widely unknown. Large individuals of L. lucerna often reach 30 cm in bell diameter; their oral arms and subgenital cavities offer many microhabitats that can be inhabited by innumerous symbionts, such as cleaner shrimp Periclimenes paivai (Martineli et al, 2008) and the spider crabs Libinia ferreirae (Nogueira Jr. and Haddad, 2005) and Libinia spinosa (Moyano et al, 2012).…”