The season Mnemiopsis is found earliest in the season at these stations is because the overwintering Mnemiopsis in the protected inlets reproduce and spread to the open waters via our inshore sampling stations. Previous work has demonstrated asymmetrical warming in these seasonal refugia (Costello et al., 2006a) relative to open waters, allowing Mnemiopsis to reproduce sooner, as egg production essentially ceases below 10"℃" . Additionally and less importantly, the mesh size used in our sampling would not have collected larval or small Mnemiopsis.