Forecasting the Future of Ongeim’l Tketau (Jellyfish Lake), Palau in a Changing Climate

Palau’s Jellyfish Lake, locally known as Ongeim’l Tketau (OTM), is an iconic tourism site and an important area of biodiversity. This landlocked marine lake is part of the Rock Island Southern Lagoon UNESCO World Heritage Site, representing an expression of Palauan national pride, and has brought in millions of dollars to the local Koror State economy. OTM is also home to the unique Golden jellyfish, Mastigias papua etpisoni, a subspecies found nowhere else in the world. Populations of the Golden jellyfish within OTM have fluctuated extensively over past decades, with numbers sometimes hovering around a high of 30 million to periods of total population collapse that can last for multiple years. Scientific monitoring of OTM has produced [...]