ИСТИНА

Marine zooplankton communities of high latitudes are often dominated by copepod crustaceans belonging to the order Calanus. The Li content in seawater is 28 mmol/l (about 200 mg/l), while in calanoids it can be 2-3 orders of magnitude higher. Accumulation of lithium through the food chain and passive uptake from the environment are considered unlikely. Thus, it should be assumed that there is a physiological mechanism for active accumulation and that lithium has some biological function which is yet to be clarified. The goal of the present study was to find correlations between atomic and molecular composition of copepod tissues to provide insight into reasons behind lithium accumulation. To this end, analyses by LIBS and Raman spectroscopy were performed.