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Lipid composition of the three co-existing Calanus species in the Arctic: impact of season, location and environment

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Abstract

Arctic species of Calanus are critical to energy transfer between higher and lower trophic levels and their relative abundance, and lipid content is influenced by the alternation of cold and warm years. All three species of Calanus were collected during different periods in Kongsfjorden (Svalbard, 79°N) and adjacent shelf during the abnormally warm year of 2006. Lipid composition and fatty acid structure of individual lipid classes were examined in relation with population structure. Wax esters dominated the neutral lipid fraction. Phosphatidylcholine (PC) dominated the structural lipids followed by phosphatidylethanolamine (PE). PC/PE ratios of 3–6 suggested an increase in PC proportions compared to earlier studies. Depending on the time scale, fatty acids of wax esters illustrated either trophic differences between fjord and offshore conditions for C. hyperboreus and C. finmarchicus or trophic differences related to seasonality for C. glacialis. Similarly, seasonality and trophic conditions controlled the changes in fatty acids of triglycerides, but de novo synthesis of long-chain monoenes suggested energy optimization to cope with immediate metabolic needs. Polar lipids fatty acid composition was species specific and on the long-term (comparison with data from the past decade) composition appears related to changes in trophic environment. Fatty acid composition of PC and PE indicated relative dominance of 20:5n-3 in PC and 22:6n-3 in PE for all three species. The combination of PE and PC acyl chain and phospholipid head group restructuring indicates an inter-annual variability and suggests that membrane lipids are the most likely candidate to evaluate adaptive changes in Arctic copepods to hydrothermal regime.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the crew of the R/V Jan Mayen and R/V Lance for their help during sampling as well as Kings Bay and the Norwegian Polar Institute for their technical and logistic support during this work. This work is a contribution to the Praceal project 455 funded by the French Polar Institute Paul Emile Victor (IPEV) and the MariClim project 165112/S30 funded by the Research Council of Norway. We would like to thanks Dr J. Dolan for his help in editing the manuscript and Dr. M. Greenacre for his comments and suggestions on statistics.

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This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche, UMR 7093, UPMC Université Paris 06, BP 28, 06234, Villefranche-Sur-Mer, France

    P. Mayzaud, M. Noyon & M. Boutoute

  2. CNRS, UMR 7093, LOV, BP 28, 06234, Villefranche-Sur-Mer, France

    P. Mayzaud, M. Noyon & M. Boutoute

  3. Akvaplan-niva, Fram Centre, 9296, Tromsø, Norway

    S. Falk-Petersen

  4. Faculty of Biosciences, Fisheries and Economics, University of Tromsø, 9037, Tromsø, Norway

    S. Falk-Petersen & A. Wold

  5. Norwegian Polar Institute, Fram Centre, 9296, Tromsø, Norway

    A. Wold

  6. Department of Biological Sciences, Marine Research Institute, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, Private Bag X3, 7701, Cape Town, South Africa

    M. Noyon

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  1. P. Mayzaud
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  2. S. Falk-Petersen
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  3. M. Noyon
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  4. A. Wold
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  5. M. Boutoute
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Correspondence to P. Mayzaud.

Additional information

This article belongs to the special issue on the “Kongsfjorden ecosystem—new views after more than a decade of research”, coordinated by Christian Wiencke and Haakon Hop.

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Figure S1

Population structure (ind/m3) and depth distribution of the three species of Calanus over the transect Coast-Kongsfjorden. (TIFF 466 kb)

Figure S2

Temperature (°C), salinity (psu) and fluorescence (arbitrary units) transects from Kongsfjorden to offshore station in April 2006. (TIFF 910 kb)

Figure S3

Temperature (°C), salinity (psu) and fluorescence (arbitrary units) transects from Kongsfjorden to offshore station in June 2006. (TIFF 166 kb)

Figure S4

Temperature (°C), salinity (PSU) and fluorescence transects (arbitrary units) from Kongsfjorden to offshore station in August 29, 2006. No fluorescence could be detected below 100 m. (TIFF 924 kb)

Figure S5

Hierarchical cluster analyses using factor score from Correspondence Analysis with total polar lipid fatty acids for all sites, seasons, stages and years. Analysis based on data set from Falk-Petersen et al. (2009) and present data. Sites: AO = Arctic Ocean, V6 = offshore station, KGF = Kongsfjorden, FSW = Fram Strait west, NB = North Bering Sea, HB = . Seasons: Spri = spring, Sum = summer, Aut = autumn, Wint = winter. Stages: F = adult females, Cn = copepodite stage n. Years: 0X = 200X, 75 = 1975, 86 = 1986, 89 = 1989. (TIFF 110 kb)

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Mayzaud, P., Falk-Petersen, S., Noyon, M. et al. Lipid composition of the three co-existing Calanus species in the Arctic: impact of season, location and environment. Polar Biol 39, 1819–1839 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-015-1725-9

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