Iceland’s Marine and Freshwater Research Institute has released a major international special issue on capelin, warning that climate and ecosystem change are reshaping the species’ distribution, behaviour and role in fisheries management.
The collection brings together 16 peer-reviewed scientific papers published in Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries and was made public on 8 January 2026.
Global focus on a key Arctic species
The special issue, titled Capelin in Times of Environmental Change, covers the four leading capelin stocks worldwide. These are the Iceland–East Greenland–Jan Mayen stock, the Barents Sea, the Newfoundland–Labrador shelf, and the Pacific stock off Alaska.
The studies focus on long-term changes in biomass, distribution, migration patterns, and behaviour that directly matter for fisheries management.
Strong Icelandic scientific contribution
Researchers from the Icelandic institute are lead authors on seven of the papers. The work builds on a dedicated capelin research programme that ran from 2018 to 2022.
Several studies document significant shifts in the distribution of capelin around Iceland, East Greenland, and Jan Mayen over the past two decades, alongside pronounced fluctuations in stock size.
Others analyse larval distribution, feeding behaviour in new feeding areas, and how vertical movement affects acoustic stock estimates.
Implications for fisheries management
The collection also includes a comprehensive review that summarises current knowledge on capelin and outlines the steps needed to apply an ecosystem-based approach to capelin fisheries.
Additional papers examine links between capelin abundance and school structure, and how changing ocean conditions shape feeding habitats along the East Greenland coast.
Together, the studies underscore that capelin is a highly mobile species whose response to environmental change must be accounted for in future management decisions.