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JPR Advance Access published online on March 22, 2007
Journal of Plankton Research, doi:10.1093/plankt/fbm025
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Application of liposome and stable isotope tracer techniques to study polyunsaturated fatty acid biosynthesis in marine zooplankton

Michael V Bell1, James R Dick1, Thomas R Anderson2 and David W Pond3,*

1 INSTITUTE OF AQUACULTURE, UNIVERSITY OF STIRLING, STIRLING, FK9 4LA 2 NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHY CENTRE, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON, SOUTHAMPTON, SO14 3ZH, UK 3 BRITISH ANTARCTIC SURVEY, NATURAL ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH COUNCIL, HIGH CROSS, MADINGLEY ROAD, CAMBRIDGE, CB3 0ET

* CORRESPONDING AUTHOR dwpo{at}bas.ac.uk

Received on June 15, 2006; revised on October 18, 2006; accepted on March 12, 2007


  Abstract

We investigated the ability of four species of marine zooplankton to synthesise polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) during pulse-chase tracer experiments. Liposomes containing a deuterium labelled precursor fatty acid, D5-18:3(n-3), were fed to female Calanus finmarchicus, Calanoides acutus, Dropanopus forcipatus and calyptopus larvae of Euphausia superba during ship-board experiments. Although all species of zooplankton readily ingested the liposomes and incorporated the D5 -18:3(n-3) tracer into their somatic lipid pool, only negligible products of elongation and desaturation; D5-18:4(n-3), D5-20:5(n-3) and D5 -22:6(n-3) were detected after 96 hour incubations. We conclude that the four species of marine zooplankton examined here are unable to synthesis PUFA at ecologically significant rates and certainly not in amounts sufficient to support growth and reproductive processes i.e. not in amounts sufficient to support growth and reproductive processes, under the conditions of this experiment

Key Words: Nutrition • PUFA • Marine zooplankton

Communicating editor: K.J.Flynn


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