**Acknowledgements**

The results on the lipid composition of White Sea blue mussels were obtained using the facilities of the Equipment Sharing Centre of the Institute of Biology KarRC RAS (Petrozavodsk, Russia).

The authors are grateful to the administration and staff of the "Kartesh" White Sea Biological Research Station of the Zoological Institute RAS, especially Drs. V.Ja. Berger, V.V. Khalaman and A.A. Sukhotin, for the permission and help with aquarium experiments at the station, as well as to researchers from the Institute of Biology KarRC RAS I.N. Bakhmet, PhD, and I.V. Sukhovskaya, PhD, for the assistance in setting up the experiments and sampling biological material. The authors also acknowledge the help of the Kandalaksha Strict Nature Reserve staff, as well as the professor at the Petrozavodsk State University Dr. G.A. Shklyarevich in collecting material from the nature reserve territory.

The study was funded by the federal budget under state-ordered project № 0221-2014-0033.
