Predictable effects of dietary lipid sources on the fatty acids compositions of four 1-year-old wild freshwater fish from Poyang Lake

Abstract

The descriptors linking dietary and fish fatty acids (FAs) compositions in four 1-year-old wild freshwater fish, Mylopharyngodon piceus, Ctenopharyngodon idella, Hypophthalmichthys molitrix, and Hypophthalmichthys nobilis, from Poyang Lake were studied. M. piceus mainly feeding on crustaceans had the highest relation of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs; r = 0.812) and odd-branched chain fatty acids (OBCFAs; r = 0.742) with spiral shells. Correlations between C. idella (herbivore) and aquatic plants (PUFAs, r = 0.995; OBCFAs, r = 0.783) were higher than other diet sources. The strongest correlation for PUFAs (r = 0.972) between H. molitrix (filter feeder with phytoplankton-feeding preference) and phytoplanktons was observed, followed by zooplanktons, whereas H. nobilis (filter feeder with zooplankton-feeding preference) showed the highest association with zooplanktons for PUFAs (r = 0.895). The high retainment of dietary FAs in fish body highlighted the potential for tailoring cultured fish FAs. The preferential distributions of n-3 long-chain PUFAs in sn-2-triacylglycerols and sn-2-phospholipids made fish an alternative for inland people supplementing n-3 PUFAs.