Abstract: The bacteria distribution in jellyfish from Bohai Sea was investigated with dilution plate method. The result shows that anaerobes commonly existed in each part of jellyfish body, while aerobes mainly subsisted on jellyfish epiderm or in its head. Vibrios accounted for over 90% of total bacteria. By ameliorating the TCBS medium, 6 strains of vibrios were obtained from jellyfish. Studies on colony features, strain morphology, growth as well as physiological and biochemical characteristics show that these strains had common features, such as gram negative, oxidase positive, facultative anaerobic and growing on TCBS medium, which are typical characters of vibrios. In addition, all the 6 strains of vibrios can produce proteinase. Among which, JF2, JF4, JF5 and JF 6 showed strong proteinase-producing ability, which were possibly the main cause resulting in the decaying of jellyfish after being captured.

Key words: Jellyfish, Proteinase, Vibrio, Microecology, Ocean microorganism resource