16. At Fibonacci Middle School, some students from grades six to eight participate in a community service. It is known that the ratio of the number of participants from grade eight to grade six, and from grade eight to grade seven are $5: 3$ and $8: 5$, respectively. Then the minimum number of people who participated in the community service is ( ).
(A) 16
(B) 40
(C) 55
(D) 79
(E) 89
16. E.

From the problem, we know that the number of eighth graders must be a multiple of both 5 and 8. Therefore, the minimum number of eighth graders is \([5,8]=40\). At this point, the number of sixth graders is \(40 \times \frac{3}{5}=24\) people, and the number of seventh graders is \(40 \times \frac{5}{8}=25\) people. Thus, the minimum number of people participating in the community service is \(40+24+25=89\).