Effects on Dietary Lipids of the Marine Bivalve Scrobicularia Plana Feeding in Different Modes

• Published in: Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1991-08, Vol.71 (3), p.635-653
• Main Authors: Bradshaw, Stuart A., O'Hara, Sean C.M., Corner, Eric D. S., Eglinton, Geoffrey
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Biological and medical sciences; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Marine; Scrobicularia plana
• ISSN: 0025-3154; 1469-7769
• DOI: 10.1017/S0025315400053200

Changes in dietary lipids were investigated in laboratory feeding experiments simulating herbivorous and coprophagous modes of feeding in the bivalve mollusc Scrobicularia plana (da Costa). The dinoflagellate Scrippsiella trochoidea (Stein) was used as the food in herbivory experiments while faeces from the crustaceanNeomysis integer (Leach) feeding on Scrippsiella were used as the food in coprophagy experiments. Changes in dietary total fatty acids, sterols and fatty alcohols were characterised by analyses of the food, faeces andanimal tissues using gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). There is a net decrease in the total lipid of the digested material during both herbivory and coprophagy. However, while fatty acids are assimilated, sterols are contributed to the faeces, leading to a decrease in the fatty acid:sterol (FAST) ratio of the digested material. Coprophagy decreases the ratio still further, such that faeces have a FAST ratio of