Distinction among North Atlantic cod Gadus morhua stocks by tissue fatty acid profiles

• Published in: Journal of Fish Biology
• Main Authors: Joensen, H., Grahl‐Nielsen, O.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2014
• Subjects: Aquatic Science; Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics; Barents Sea; Faroe Bank; Norway; atlantic cod; Gadus morhua; Iceland; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jfb.12407; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fjfb.12407; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jfb.12407

The fatty acid ( FA ) profiles of the white muscle and heart tissues of cod Gadus morhua from five locations, Faroe Bank, Faroe Plateau, North‐West Iceland, Norway–Barents Sea and Denmark–Skagerrak, were population dependent. The interregional differences of FAs were significantly dissimilar ( P < 0·01) in most cases. By way of a rapid and simple analytical method, the stock dependence and harvest location of individual G. morhua were chemometrically determined by multivariate principal component analysis. The difference among the stocks was correlated with the average water temperature at the harvest locations. It thus appears that the tissue FA profile is a phenotypic trait that is partly temperature driven.