Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, 20 Castray Esplanade, Battery Point, Tasmania, 7004, Australia.
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Castray Esplanade, Battery Point, Tasmania, 7004, Australia.
Sci Rep. 2020 Apr 8;10(1):6060. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-62800-7.
Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) are a key component of the Antarctic food web with considerable lipid reserves that are vital for their health and higher predator survival. Krill lipids are primarily derived from their diet of plankton, in particular diatoms and flagellates. Few attempts have been made to link the spatial and temporal variations in krill lipids to those in their food supply. Remotely-sensed environmental parameters provide large-scale information on the potential availability of krill food, although relating this to physiological and biochemical differences has only been performed on small scales and with limited samples. Our study utilised remotely-sensed data (chlorophyll a and sea surface temperature) coupled with krill lipid data obtained from 3 years of fishery-derived samples. We examined within and between year variation of trends in both the environment and krill biochemistry data. Chlorophyll a levels were positively related to krill lipid levels, particularly triacylglycerol. Plankton fatty acid biomarkers analysed in krill (such as n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids) increased with decreasing sea surface temperature and increasing chlorophyll a levels. Our study demonstrates the utility of combining remote-sensing and biochemical data in examining biological and physiological relationships between Antarctic krill and the Southern Ocean environment.
南极磷虾（Euphausia superba）是南极食物网的重要组成部分，具有相当大的脂质储备，对其健康和更高的捕食者的生存至关重要。磷虾的脂质主要来自它们的浮游生物饮食，特别是硅藻和鞭毛藻。很少有人试图将磷虾脂质的时空变化与其食物供应的变化联系起来。遥感环境参数提供了关于磷虾食物潜在可利用性的大规模信息，尽管将这与生理和生化差异联系起来仅在小范围内进行，并且样本有限。我们的研究利用了遥感数据（叶绿素 a 和海表温度）以及从 3 年渔业样本中获得的磷虾脂质数据。我们检查了环境和磷虾生化数据中年内和年际变化趋势。叶绿素 a 水平与磷虾脂质水平呈正相关，特别是三酰甘油。磷虾中分析的浮游生物脂肪酸生物标志物（如 n-3 多不饱和脂肪酸）随着海表温度的降低和叶绿素 a 水平的升高而增加。我们的研究表明，将遥感和生化数据结合起来，研究南极磷虾与南大洋环境之间的生物和生理关系是有用的。
