Associations of fish juveniles with rhizostome jellyfishes in the Philippines, with taxonomic remarks on a commercially harvested species in Carigara Bay, Leyte Island

Abstract

A wide variety of fish and invertebrates are associated with marine jellyfishes, and their interactions are diverse. We preliminarily investigated symbionts on two species of rhizostome jellyfishes collected from Leyte and Palawan Islands, the Philippines, in August 2013. The collected jellyfishes were Lobonemoides robustus Stiasny on both islands and Acromitus maculosus Light on Palawan Island. Lobonemoides robustus is commercially harvested on both islands, and seems to have been previously misidentified as Lobonema smithi Mayer. The associated fish juveniles on these hosts were identified as Alepes djedaba (Forsskål) and Carangoides equula (Temminck & Schlegel). Alepes djedaba is closely associated with many species of scyphozoan jellyfish broadly in the southeastern Asian waters. The associations of carangids with jellyfish are also reviewed.