Fatty Acid Composition in Eggs of Atlantic Cod (Gadus morhua)

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Abstract
Fatty acids were determined in single eggs of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua). The eggs were obtained a few hours after spawning and fertilization from 4-yr-old cod kept in aquaria. By multivariate treatment of the analytical results, the composition of fatty acids was found to vary between eggs within the same spawning batch from the same female. A different variation was found between eggs from the first spawning batch from two different females. The two females had been reared under identical conditions from the egg stage, but were of different sizes at the time of spawning. The fatty acid content in the eggs from the smallest was 4% lower than in the largest. Eggs from the eighteenth spawning batch contained 23% less fatty acids than those from the first batch from the same female. The decrease differed between the acids: the monoenic acids had decreased by 29%, the polyunsaturated acids by 26%, and the saturated acids by 9%.