Discrimination of Sebastes viviparus, Sebastes marinus and Sebastes mentella from Faroe Islands by chemometry of the fatty acid profile in heart and gill tissues and in the skull oil

The composition of fatty acids in the tissue of heart, gill and skull oil o f the three redfish species, Sebastes viviparus, Sebastes marinus and Sebas tes mentella was determined by a chemometric method. The method consists of methanolysis of samples of the tissues and of the oils, gas chromatography of the resulting fatty acid methyl esters and multivariate statistical tre atment, by principal component analysis, of the analytical data. Although t he differences in fatty acid composition among the three tissues were the d ominating features of the data, the three species had significantly differe nt fatty acid profiles within each tissue, even though variation among the individuals was considerable. The fatty acid profiles appear to be species specific. The mutual relationship between S. marinus and S. mentella is clo ser than the relationship between either of them and S. viviparus. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.