## 3 Results and Discussion
### Volatile Compounds Profile  
The volatile profile of haplotypes was studied by SPME-GC-MS, and the putative identification of their volatile compounds was carried out by comparing the mass spectra with the mass spectra bank from libraries and the Linear Retention Index (LRI). Compounds were classified by their chemical classes and odor descriptions according to the literature. In order to compare the volatile profile among species, the percentage of peak area was measured in relation to the total area of the chromatogram (Supplementary Materials, Table S2). Figure 2: Partial least square-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) correlation loading plot showing the correlation between the analyzed nutritional (moisture, protein, fat, ash, fibre, carbohydrates (CH), energy, salt, chlorides, Na, Ca, K, Fe, Mg, Mn, Zn, Cu, SFA, MFA, and PFA) and phytochemical parameters (TPC, ORAC, HOSC, inverse values of ACE inhibition, hydroxybenzoic acids (HBA), hydroxycinnamic acids (HCA), flavanol, flavonol, flavones, and flavanone) (in the picture in blue), and the groups based on the halophyte species (IC, _Inula crithmoides_; SF, _Sarcocorna fraticosa_; SR, _Salicornia nunossissima_; DC, _Disphyma crassidium_; CM, _Crithmun martimum_; MN, _Mesembryanthemum nodiform_; MC, _Mesembryanthemum crystallinum_) (in red). In the model, the inner circle indicates correlation loadings lower than \(|\)0.5\(|\) and the space between the inner and the outer circles the correlation loadings higher than 10.5\(|\) and lower than 11.0\(|\). Results showed that the main chemical classes detected in the volatile profile of these halophyte species were the terpenes (30.36%), alcohols (27.76%), and aldehydes (26.34%), while esters (9.78%) and ketones (4.14%) were minor classes. _C. maritium_ (99.10%; 0.90%), _I. crithmoides_ (59.85%; 21.48%), and _D. crassifolium_ (35.12%; 26.09%) displayed as most abundant volatiles terpen and esters, respectively (Figure 3). In contrast, _M. nodiforum_ (88.90%; 2.85%), _S. fruticosa_ (44.56%; 27.56%), and _M. crystallinum_ (42.44%; 47.88%) showed predominance of alcohols and aldehydes, respectively, while _S. ramossissima_ (99.70%) was richer in aldehydes. The main terpen identified in _C. maritium_ were the m-mentha-4,8-diene (30.44%), thymol methyl ether (23.59%), alpha-fenchene (17.24%), and p-cymene (13.41%). In _I. crithmoides_, the main terpen were p-cymene (22.94%), alpha-phellandrene (17.41%), and camphene (8.34%), and in _D. crassifolium_, thymol methyl ether (20.74%), p-cymene (9.03%), and alpha-gurjunene (3.68%) were the most abundant terpen, as detailed in Supplementary Materials, Table S2. Concerning previous studies, the leaves of _C. maritium_ have been reported to contain thymolmethylether (12.9 to 15.5%) and p-cymene (3.7 to 9.3%) [94,95]. In the aerial part of _I. crithmoides_, the presence of alpha-phellandrene (0.9-26.2%), p-cymene (trace-53.8%), and camphene (5.2%) were also reported [96,97]. In the _S. ramossissima_, the two aldehydes identified as octanal (47.68%) and 2-hexenal (45.65%) were responsible by the typical grassy green aroma of this plant [98]. The major compounds identified, respectively, in _M. crystallinum_ and _S. fruticosa_ included 1-hexanol (40.33%; 44.04%) and 2-hexenal (36.66%; 27.56%) as being responsible for odors described as herbal and green [99,100]. In addition, 1-hexanol (77.80%) and 3-hexen-1-ol (8.58%) were major volatile compounds in the _M. nodiforum_. The 3-hexen-1-ol also identified in _I. crithmoides_, _D. crassifolium_, and _C. maritium_ has been described in the literature as having an odor of green, marine, and seaweed [101]. A previous study exhibited that 3-hexen-1-ol was the major volatile compound responsible for the marine odors in _S. ramossissima_[11]. In fact, there was a qualitative diversity of phenolic compounds [102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133,  
cultivation conditions, _S.