Biochemical Correlates of Seasonal Change in Marine Communities

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Plankton and benthos respond in different ways to seasonal change, but their patterns of fatty acid distribution are similar. The general trend of chemical progression is toward longer chain lengths and increasing unsaturation. As a temperate community matures and becomes more complex, so does its fatty acid composition. Chemical progression is most rapid during succession from winter-spring to summer-fall species groups, a period of reorganization among characteristic fatty acid sets. Increasing amounts of saturated acids seem to disclose a change in community structure; an important polyunsaturate forms a locus around which these progressions take place. Structural change within a community can be portrayed in a space defined by its fatty acid variables. The patterns formed here were oval over an annual cycle. An embellishment on the benthic pattern corresponded to collapse in a pioneer stage and subsequent reorganization at a higher taxonomic level. In general, however, benthos had a less robust trajectory in fatty acid space than plankton. Biochemical sample patterns are believed to bear sufficient correspondence to the stable domain of parameter space (Orians 1975, May 1975) for convenient testing of stability theories. Because they are based on ubiquitous monomers, these patterns also permit fundamental comparisons between natural communities in various states and conditions.