Description:
<jats:p>The fatty acid (<jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">FA</jats:styled-content>) profiles of the white muscle and heart tissues of cod <jats:italic>Gadus morhua</jats:italic> from five locations, Faroe Bank, Faroe Plateau, North‐West Iceland, Norway–Barents Sea and Denmark–Skagerrak, were population dependent. The interregional differences of <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">FAs</jats:styled-content> were significantly dissimilar (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0·01) in most cases. By way of a rapid and simple analytical method, the stock dependence and harvest location of individual <jats:italic>G. morhua</jats:italic> were chemometrically determined by multivariate principal component analysis. The difference among the stocks was correlated with the average water temperature at the harvest locations. It thus appears that the tissue <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">FA</jats:styled-content> profile is a phenotypic trait that is partly temperature driven.</jats:p>