How Voracious Comb Jellyfish Makes Itself 'Invisible' to Prey
ScienceDaily (Oct. 11, 2010) — Despite its primitive structure, the North American comb jellyfish can sneak up on its prey like a high-tech stealth submarine, making it a successful predator. Researchers, including one from the University of Gothenburg, have now been able to show how the jellyfish makes itself hydrodynamically 'invisible'.
The North American comb jellyfish Mnemiopsis leidyi has a simple structure with two large oral lobes for catching prey. (Credit: Photo by Lars Johan Hansson)
The North American comb jellyfish Mnemiopsis leidyi has long been known to consume vast quantities of zooplankton. A few years ago the species became established in Northern Europe.
Like many other jellyfish,Mnemiopsis leidyi has a large gelatinous body. The large size increases its chances of encountering prey, but can also be a disadvantage since the prey organisms are often highly sensitive to movements in the water. Nevertheless, the comb jellyfish manages to catch large amounts of copepod plankton, which are known for their acute escape response.
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Stealth predation and the predatory success of the invasive ctenophoreMnemiopsis leidyi
Sean P. Colina,1,
John H. Costellob,
Lars J. Hanssonc,
Josefin Titelmand, and
John O. Dabirie
-Author Affiliations
aDepartment of Marine Biology and Environmental Sciences, Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI 02809;
bBiology Department, Providence College, Providence, RI 02918;
cDepartment of Marine Ecology–Gothenburg, University of Gothenburg, SE-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden;
dDepartment of Biology, University of Oslo, N-0316 Oslo, Norway; and
eGraduate Aeronautical Laboratories and Bioengineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125
Edited by David M. Karl, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, and approved August 27, 2010 (received for review March 12, 2010)
Abstract
In contrast to higher metazoans such as copepods and fish, ctenophores are a basal metazoan lineage possessing a relatively narrow set of sensory-motor capabilities. Yet lobate ctenophores can capture prey at rates comparable to sophisticated predatory copepods and fish, and they are capable of altering the composition of coastal planktonic communities. Here, we demonstrate that the predatory success of the lobate ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi lies in its use of cilia to generate a feeding current that continuously entrains large volumes of fluid, yet is virtually undetectable to its prey. This form of stealth predation enables M. leidyi to feed as a generalist predator capturing prey, including microplankton (approximately 50 μm), copepods (approximately 1 mm), and fish larvae (>3 mm). The efficacy and versatility of this stealth feeding mechanism has enabled M. leidyi to be notoriously destructive as a predator and successful as an invasive species.
feeding current, flow, predator, prey, biological invasions
Footnotes
1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: scolin@rwu.edu.
Author contributions: S.P.C. and J.H.C. designed research; S.P.C., J.H.C., L.J.H., and J.T. performed research; J.O.D. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; S.P.C. analyzed data; and S.P.C. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at
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