Every three to four years, jellyfish researchers from around the world come together for some serious fun: the International Jellyfish Blooms Symposium.

The event is one of a kind and a great opportunity to reconnect with old friends, meet new colleagues, and share the latest discoveries about our favourite marine invertebrates. This year, the 8th International Jellyfish Blooms Symposium took place in Cork, Ireland, where the Manet Team from the University Museum of Bergen presented some of our latest findings and exchanged ideas with a fantastic international community of jellyfish researchers.

Over several days of talks, posters and discussions, the symposium covered many aspects of gelatinous zooplankton research; from their fascinating life cycles and biodiversity to their roles in marine ecosystems and responses to our changing oceans. The programme also showcased how new molecular, technological and modelling approaches are changing the way we study these often elusive animals. Most importantly, the meeting provided a unique space to exchange ideas, build new collaborations and discuss where jellyfish research should go next.

Aino opened the second day of the conference with a fantastic keynote talk on the limitations of sanger sequencing and available reference databases. Challenges we will be working on during our new Artsdatabanken project CHANGEZ. She also shared the work we’ve done over the last decade and the exciting future endeavors we are embarking on.

Joan shared his latest findings on a group of substantially understudied hydromedusae and how crucial it is to integrate both life cycle stages if we aim to understand their phylogenetic relationships and distribution.

Praveen focused on his results on bipolarity in calycophoran syphonophores, as part of the MSCA H2020 project POLE2POLE, funded by the European Commission.

Erlend explained how to properly identify pelagic hydrozoans affecting aquaculture in NE Atlantic. You can check out our ID guide here: https://zenodo.org/records/17303147 (link)

Luis presented the project JellySafe, funded by FHF – Norwegian Seafood Research Fund, and the extent of the Apolemia uvaria (and other jellyfish) outbreaks for the last two decades.

Doris shared how little we still know about the true diversity of tubulariid hydroids, despite being widely widespread and negatively impact aquaculture.

Besides the scientific programme of the conference, we also joined a Pint of Science outreach event promoted by the symposium’s organizing committee, where Joan gave a talk exploring the curious and often surprising lives of these fascinating animals.

In brief: we had a great, productive and enriching experience presenting our latest findings and hearing very inspiring talks. Plus, we got to explore some of the wonders in and around Cork, with some birding whenever we had the chance. We are very much looking forward to the 9th Jellyfish Blooms Symposium in Sao Paulo 2029!

– Manet Team