Steryl chlorin esters are formed by zooplankton herbivory

Steryl chlorin esters (SCEs) were formed in laboratory feeding experiments when starved females of the copepod Calanus helgolandicus were allowed to graze on a culture of the diatom Thalassiosira weissflogii. They were found when the zooplankton had grazed for 48 hours and were also identified in fecal pellets subsequently left in seawater in the dark. The distribution contained the diatom sterols in approximately the same relative abundance as the free sterols in the substrate, as well as the most abundant copepod sterol, all esterified to the chlorophyll a degradation product, pyropheophorbide a. Hence, in studies aimed at using sedimentary SCE sterol distributions as indicators of phytoplankton community structure, cholesterol should not be considered since the cholesteryl ester of pyropheophorbide a was a significant component in the fecal pellet SCEs. The findings represent a step forward in unravelling the transformations undergone by chlorophyll a in aquatic environments, since the abundance and wide occurrence of sedimentary SCEs indicate that they are a significant preservational sink for the chlorophyll a biosynthesised in the photic zone.