• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.725-734
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• 2019

Moon jellyfish Aurelia coerulea are highly abundant off the coast of Tongyeong, Korea. We measured the density of A. coerulea in this area using a scientific echosounder at frequencies of 38 and 120 kHz, and then applied a distorted wave Born approximation (DWBA) model to calculate the target strength of the echosounder at each frequency. Then, we used the frequency difference method to extract jellyfish echo signals and estimate the A. coerulea density. A. coerulea was evenly distributed throughout the water column; the backscattering strength ranged from -75 to -65 dB. In May and August, the A. coerulea densities at survey lines 3 and 4 were estimated at 1.5-1.6 and 0.2-0.9 g/m2, with mean weighted densities of 1.04 and 0.48 g/m2, respectively. In September, the A. coerulea densities estimates in Jaran Bay and Goseong Bay were 0.6-2.1 and 0.1-0.4 g/m2, with mean weighted densities of 1.25 and 0.24 g/m2, respectively.