María Algueró-Muñiz

María Algueró-Muñiz, marine biologist at Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), works at the North Sea Island Helgoland. In summer, she goes out by boat to collect moon jellyfish for her experiments on the impact of ocean acidification, warming and deoxygenation. She concentrates on the „ephyrae“ state of jellyfish. The more she knows about this early and critical life stage, the better she can assess how the complete population will develop in the future.

At the laboratory, the baby jellyfish coped very well with changes that might occur until the end of this century. This means that moon jellies could be among the winners of climate change and outcompete more sensitive species – including fish.

María Algueró-Muñiz thinks that jellyfish are really beautiful animals. But she still hopes that they will not swarm the ocean in a few decades.