Summary
Hydrocarbons have been isolated from most major biomass species of zooplankton and fish in an Antarctic mesopelagic community. Unlike the odd-carbon preference of aliphatic hydrocarbons which typifies terrestrial plants and temperate marine organisms, even carbon chain-length paraffins predominate in 80% of the Antarctic species analyzed. Although the ultimate source of these even carbon n-alkanes cannot be determined from our study, the dominance of these compounds suggests an unusual biochemical pathway may be responsible for their synthesis in this ecosystem.
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Reinhardt, S.B., Van Vleet, E.S. Hydrocarbons of antarctic midwater organisms. Polar Biol 6, 47–51 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00446240
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00446240