3.2. Effect of development and temperature on percent lipid content
Percent lipid content (% DW) of the combined embryo, yolk and chorion was not influenced by temperature, but did vary with development stage (Table 2). Percent lipid content generally increased with each stage of development, except that percent lipid content at fin flutter was similar to percent lipid content at the previous eyed stage (Fig. 1).
Overall, percent lipid content increased by 20% from fertilization to hatching. Following transesterification of the total lipid extract, 32 peaks were detected in each FAME sample and 17 peaks were identified based on retention time of known FAME standards. Fifteen peaks were unidentified, and those peaks below 0.3% were excluded from further analysis. Only five unidentified peaks were N0.3%. These unidentified
compounds totalled 5% of percent lipid content (b2% of total mass) and are presented as a pooled ‘Unidentified’ group (Table 1). Seven of the 17 identified fatty acids and the unidentified group were significantly influenced by development stage, temperature and the interaction between the two (Table 2). For the remaining 10 fatty acids, six were
significantly influenced by development stage and temperature independently,
and four were significantly influenced by development stage only. For those fatty acids where there was no interactive effect detected, summary data for the effect of development stage and temperature are presented in Tables 3 and 4, respectively