Research in Action: Red Jellyfish

The comb jelly Aulicoctena, a deep-sea species that was collected using a remotely operated underwater vehicle by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

Brown University biologist Casey Dunn, with funding from the National Science Foundation, uses new genomics tools to answer old questions about animal evolution. His study settles some long-standing debates about the relationships between major groups of animals and offers up a few surprises. The big shocker: comb jellyfish – common and extremely fragile jellies with well-developed tissues – appear to have diverged from other animals even before the lowly sponge, which has no tissue to speak of.

This finding calls into question the very root of the animal tree of life, which traditionally placed sponges at the base. “What is exciting is that this new information changes our basic understanding about the natural world – information found in basic biology books and natural history posters,” Dunn said. “While the picture of the tree of life is far from complete after this study, it is clearer. And these new results show that these new genomic approaches will be able to resolve at least some problems that have been previously intractable.”

For more eye-popping photos and videos, stinging statistics and thought-provoking discussions of jellyfish ecology, go to NSF's special report on jellyfish swarms, Jellyfish Gone Wild, at http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/jellyfish/index.jsp.

Credit: Casey Dunn, Brown University