The effectiveness and applications of drones for monitoring jellyfish

Jellyfish populations experience fluctuations referred to as ‘bloom and busts’, with numbers rapidly increasing followed by their sudden disappearance. When jellyfish numbers are blooming, they have a complicated relationship with their surrounding environment (predators, competitors, but also a food source), and with humans (sting swimmers, but also source of income and food). As a result, it is important to have a precise and efficient tool for monitoring jellyfish populations. In this extended abstract, we will review studies that have used drones to monitor and track different species of jellyfish, identify the advantages and limitations across these studies, and suggest methods to be adopted when using drones to monitor jellyfish.