News & announcements

Marine and Freshwater Research Institute has released advice on fishing opportunities for over twenty fish and invertebrate stocks in Icelandic waters in the 2025/2026 fishing year.

Lumpfish spawn around the coast of the Nordic countries with the young migrating away from the coast as they grow, but where do they go? The new publication, from researchers in Iceland, Greenland, Faroe Islands, Denmark and Norway, documents the distribution of lumpfish during summer from the International Ecosystem Summer Survey of the Nordic Seas (aka the mackerel survey)

The Great Scientific Swim around Iceland: 1,000 Miles in 100 Days, Killer Whales & 130ft Waves Ross Edgley Takes on a Historic Open Water Challenge and collaborate with MFRI, Matís and Háskóli Ísland to develop citizen science.

A new article reveals that kombucha production has developed into a profitable industry, and although the kombucha market in Iceland is still in its early stages, this study shows that seaweed kombucha is a feasible prospect for Icelandic consumers.

The Nordic Council of Ministers published recently The Circular Economy of Fishing Gear in Nordic Fisheries. It is the outcome of a Pan-Nordic project funded by AG-Fish under the Council’s auspices, led by the Marine and Freshwater Research Institute (MFRI)

A newly published article describes the genetic stratification of inshore shrimp (common in shallower water) and offshore shrimp (northern shrimp, Pandalus borealis) populations in northern Iceland.

MFRI advises that the catch of female lumpfish in the 2024/2025 fishing year does not exceed 2760 tonnes. This is a 32% reduction between years.

A seminar will be held 27 March at 12.30 at MFRI called: Capelin reared in different temperature scenarios and the effect on growth, survival and maturity across temperatures.

MFRI hosted recently a course on sampling and identifying chironomid pupal skins (insects). As 20 freshwater scientists, from Iceland, sat for 4 days, learning how to identify chironomid pupal skins, they managed to find 20 new species that previously had not been documented in Iceland.

The Kroyer’s lantern fish (Notoscopelus kroyeri) is one of the most common species of mesopelagic fish around Iceland, but it has been little studied so far. Gaining knowledge of the species' biology is a prerequisite for its sustainable exploitation in the future.