You've heard intermittent reports of jellyfish invasions here and there in the world over the last years. Sometimes even 'giant jellyfish' invasions. The efflorescence of these animals (I believe they are technically 'animals') is commonly ascribed to the warming of the ocean, and there has been some concern voiced that jellies might take over the seas as they continue to warm.
Here's a new angle though: jellyfish, in their continuous vertical wanderings, are mixing upper and lower layers of ocean water, thus boosting the ocean's absorption of CO2, and this may account for the fact that the ocean has 'sunk' more CO2 than had been expected and predicted.
Interesting! It seems the jellyfish is embodying and performing a Gaian stabilization function, amounting to a natural feedback loop to soak up more CO2 when the sea temperatures rise!
We haven't paid much attention to the jellyfish, but I'm sure we will in the future- and not just as a plentiful potential food, or because they boost the ocean's CO2 sink, but because in one jelly species, there's a gene-set giving it, well, immortality. Specifically, this jellyfish, once it has matured and mated and reproduced, can revert to a juvenile stage and start all over again. I think I might like that! I guess we'd better start colonizing some planets before we implant that gene in ourselves...
