Patterns of Lipid Storage in Post-Metamorphic Marine Invertebrates

Lipids are a prominent biochemical class in marine invertebrates, characteristic of wella-fed organisms, and are utilized when the animals are starved. There has been little demonstration of such usage in the field, however, and little consideration of the relationship between the amount of lipid stores and the characteristic life styles of benthic macroinvertebrates. The amount of lipids stored by zooplankton and pelagic invertebrates has been interpreted primarily in terms of availability and variation of food supply and in involvement in buoyancy. Lipid stores in marine invertebrates may serve a variety of roles in the same organism; a primary goal of future work should be to identify and discriminate among them.