Lipids

Grok Questions:

1. Please define lipids and their role in marine ecosystems.
2. What are the advantages of fish feeding on high lipid forage fish such as herring, mackerel and menhaden compared with feeding on invertebraes and crustaceans?
3. Studies of cod show they have low length at age, weigh at age, fecundity, and recruitment. In addition, the forage base has a lot of low lipid components like invertebrates and crustaceans. Could they be related and would more high lipid forage fish like herring, mackerel and menhaden help?
4. What does a diet of high lipid forage fish do to a female fish’s fecundity compared to a diet of invertebrates and crustaceans?
5. Since fish need lipids in their diet, do fish seek out high lipid forage fish, such as herring, menhaden and mackerel?
6. What can you tell me about “optimal foraging theory” as it applies to fish in a marine ecosystem?
7. Do female predatory fish that feed on high lipid fish like menhaden, mackerel and herring become more fecund than those that feed on squid and crustaceans?
8. What do you have on the “Junk Food Hypothesis ?”
9. What is Cargill doing to find alternative sources of lipids for the manufacture of fish feed?
10. Will increased lipids in cod’s diet improve their tolerance to warming waters?
11. Would a healthy, well-nourished fish population have a better chance of adapting to small changes in temperature over time?
12. Atlantic cod fish, according to the NEFSC status of the ecosystem report, show low weight at age, low length at age, low fecundity and low recruitment. What could be the cause of that?
13. If warming ocean temperatures raise a cod’s metabolic rate, wouldn’t a higher lipid diet help that?
14. How many gallons of lipids, like omega 3 and PUFA are being produced in the US from algae and genetically modified soybeans and canola?
15. The NEFSC in their Status of the Ecosystem New England Report has a graph showing a forage index indicating the amount of forage biomass that is available, It also has a chart which shows the energy density of various species of prey which is described in this paper.
16. What is the optimum energy density of forage for fish like cod and striped bass?
17. What is different in the biology of a benthivore like black drum compared to a piscivore like striped bass that can make a black drum healthy on a low lipid diet and a striped bass unhealthy on the same diet?
18. Calanus get lipid from algae, store it and herring eat the calanus. Menhaden get the lipid directly from algae. What is the percentage energy loss difference between the herring and menhaden?
19. In an article about herring in Alaska, it was mentioned that the zooplankton in colder waters were much higher in lipids than the zooplankton in warmer waters. Is that because the zooplankton store up lipids for the winters when the days are much shorter and the phytoplankton growth is limited?
20. How many gallons of lipids, like omega 3 and PUFA are being produced in the US from algae and genetically modified soybeans and canola?