The redfish species Sebastes viviparus, Sebastes marinus and Sebastes mentella have different composition of their tissue fatty acids

The fatty acid profile in the tissue of heart, gill, skull- acid otolith-oi l of the three redfish species, Sebastes viviparus, S. marinus and S. mente lla was determined by a chemometric method, consisting of methanolysis of s amples of the tissues and of the oils and gas chromatography of the resulti ng fatty acid methyl esters. The analytical data were treated by multivaria te statistics comprising principal component analysis (PCA) and soft indepe ndent modeling of class analogy (SIMCA). Although the differences in fatty acid composition among the two tissues and two oils were the dominating fea tures of the data, the three species had significantly different fatty acid profiles within each tissue. Variation among the individuals was considera ble. The fatty acid profiles appeared to be species specific. The mutual re lationship between S. marinus and S. mentella is closer than the relationsh ip between either of them and S. viviparus. A comparison with a correspondi ng investigation on the same three species from another location indicates that the observed differences do not seem to be affected by biotic or abiot ic factors. (C) 2001 Elsevier science Inc. All rights reserved.