The cave-dwelling mysid shrimp Hemimysis margalefi can tell the water-borne odor bouquet, the chemical seascape, characteristic of their home cave. They chose to spend time in home water rather than water from similar but foreign caves. Ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry was used to identify differences in odor-producing metabolites between the caves. These included natural peptides, fatty acids, steroids and alkaloids, as well as anthropogenic pollutants. Researchers hypothesize that sedentary marine organisms like sponges, which are abundant in these caves, produce many of the specialized metabolites that give each cave its signature odor bouquet. They suggest that any change in water quality or sessile fauna inside caves can alter their chemical seascape, with a likely negative impact on the functioning of the whole ecosystem.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2024.1448616/full