By JIM WAYMER
2 June 2011 COCOA BEACH — The mauve stinger jellyfish spared swimmers Wednesday, after stinging about 1,800 people in the past week. But biologists say the tiny creature could pop up off the Space Coast in sporadic pulses for weeks, even as long as a year, depending on how long conditions favor its spread. “We don’t fully understand the factors that drive these long sort of decade-scale fluctuations in these animals,” said Monty Graham, senior marine scientist at Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama. Biologists believe mauve stinger jellyfish “bloom” into large populations every 10 years or so, in patterns that follow climate cycles, most recently the North Atlantic oscillation. Graham said the oscillation boosted rain in the Gulf of Mexico region this past spring, creating runoff of nutrients that drove up plankton production and helped the jellyfish thrive. The Gulf Stream may have carried those jellies here. “There are going to be so many of them that they are not going to be kept in check by fish or sea turtles,” Graham said. … “Individuals can produce thousands of offspring per year,” said Graham, who added they hadn’t been seen for more than a decade. …

Mauve stinger jellyfish could linger near Brevard’s beaches for a year