Tracking dietary fatty acids in triacylglycerols and phospholipids of zooplankton

Abstract Fatty acids (FA) in lake zooplankton are largely provided by dietary FA and affected taxonomic composition of zooplankton, temperature, other environmental conditions. However, the extent to which retained and/or bioconverted remains unclear. In this study, we examined how (seston), temperature physico‐chemical variables (i.e., concentrations chlorophyll a , dissolved organic carbon, nitrate, ammonium, phosphate) explained variation membrane (phospholipids; PL) storage (triacylglycerols; TAG) lipids zooplankton. We tested hypotheses that: (1) increasing increases content stored as TAG whereas PL unaffected naturally occurring changes supply; (2) seston better predict variations TAG, predicts PL. Results show that an increase polyunsaturated increased but not eicosapentaenoic acid or docosahexaenoic Moreover, was more similar than it PL, indicating major taxon‐specific differences FA. Dietary predictor while is Temperature little This field study improves our understanding different taxa respond FA, chlorophyll‐ phosphate fulfil their physiological requirements.