Call for papers on freshwater eels

Freshwater eels (Anguilla spp.) are among the most fascinating and enigmatic fishes on Earth. Their complex life cycles connect lakes, rivers, wetlands, estuaries, coastal waters, and remote oceanic spawning areas. Across the Southern Hemisphere, freshwater eels hold deep ecological, cultural, and social significance, while also supporting customary, recreational, and commercial fisheries that contribute to local livelihoods and food security.

Freshwater eels are among the most widely distributed migratory fishes on Earth. Across their global distribution, eels face common pressures from habitat loss and fragmentation, barriers to migration, altered freshwater flows, overfishing, pollution, disease, climate change, and shifting ocean conditions. Despite decades of research, key aspects of their biology remain unresolved, including spawning locations, larval dispersal pathways, recruitment dynamics, habitat use, population connectivity, and the cumulative effects of multiple stressors across life stages. Yet, researchers rarely cross the traditional discipline boundaries that eels freely do.

Over half of the world’s freshwater eels are found in the Southern Hemisphere, yet our understanding of these species remains limited compared with that of their Northern Hemisphere counterparts. We propose that this gap presents an opportunity to build new science in the region which transcends the traditional silos and drives forward global eel conservation. Rapid environmental change, increasing anthropogenic pressures on aquatic ecosystems, and growing recognition within scientific and governance institutions of longstanding Indigenous and community-based knowledge systems create a timely opportunity to bring together diverse perspectives and disciplines to explore the future of freshwater eels across the Southern Hemisphere.

The New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research invites expressions of interest for a Special Issue focused on freshwater eel research across the Southern Hemisphere. We welcome contributions that advance understanding of eel ecology, biology, conservation, management, and cultural relationships, particularly those that integrate knowledge across environments, disciplines, and perspectives.

We are especially interested in studies that consider freshwater eels through a ki uta ki tai / mountains-to-sea lens, recognising the connections between freshwater, estuarine, coastal, sea and oceanic systems. We also encourage submissions that integrate diverse knowledge systems and practices, including mātauranga Māori and other Indigenous knowledge systems, local ecological and fisheries knowledge, academic research, and management experience.

We invite submissions on a broad range of topics, including, but not limited to:

• Eel migration and connectivity: Research on freshwater, estuarine, coastal, sea and oceanic migrations, including silver eel migration, larval dispersal, glass eel recruitment, population connectivity, phylogeography, population genetics, and population genomics.
• Spawning ecology and early life history: Studies investigating spawning areas, leptocephali distribution, oceanographic drivers, larval ecology, recruitment processes, early-life survival, reproductive physiology, silvering, metamorphosis, and larval development.
• Freshwater, estuarine, and coastal ecology: Research on habitat use, growth, diet, trophic ecology, movement, behaviour, physiology, osmoregulation, salinity adaptation, age and growth, mortality and survival, and population dynamics across eel life stages.
• Threats and cumulative stressors: Studies addressing habitat degradation, barriers to migration, altered flow regimes, fisheries pressure, contaminants, disease, climate change, and their combined impacts on eel populations.
• Conservation, restoration, management, and aquaculture: Contributions focused on eel conservation strategies, habitat restoration, fish passage, monitoring, population assessment, fisheries management, recovery planning, aquaculture, captive rearing, larval culture, and applied methods supporting conservation or sustainable production.
• Indigenous, cultural, community and socio-economic perspectives: Work highlighting cultural relationships with freshwater eels, Indigenous-led research, co-management, customary fisheries, community monitoring, and knowledge-sharing approaches.
• Methods and emerging tools: Applications of eDNA, stable isotope analysis, otolith microstructure and microchemistry, telemetry, ecological and oceanographic modelling, molecular taxonomy, DNA barcoding, phylogenetics, morphology, and other tools to advance eel research.
• Policy, governance, and transdisciplinary approaches: Contributions exploring governance frameworks, policy challenges, cross-sector collaboration, and integrated approaches to eel conservation and management.

To capture the breadth of current freshwater eel research, we encourage submissions from researchers, Indigenous knowledge holders, practitioners, fisheries managers, policymakers, community groups, and resource managers. We seek a mix of research papers, concise thematic or review-style manuscripts, methodological papers, and opinion pieces that share valuable insights into freshwater eel science, conservation, and management.

Key words: Freshwater eels, Anguilla, tuna, eel migration, leptocephali, glass eels, larval dispersal, recruitment, freshwater ecology, marine connectivity, ki uta ki tai, conservation, fisheries management, Indigenous knowledge, mātauranga Māori, aquatic connectivity, Southern Hemisphere, Pacific.

Timeline

• Expression of interest deadline: 31 August 2026
• Authors notified of selection outcome: on a rolling basis until late September 2026
• Deadline for formal submissions: 30 April 2027
• Issue formally compiled: early 2028

Guest Editors

The guest editorial team is comprised of Simon Stewart (Cawthron, NZ), Siobhan Nuri (Waikato, NZ), Hagi Yulia Sugeha (National Research and Innovation Agency, Indonesia), Eric Feunteun (Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, and Ecole Pratique des Hautes Études, France), and Amandine Sabadel (AUT, NZ).

Submission information

Please send a preliminary title, indicative author list, affiliations and a short descriptive paragraph outlining the scope of your proposed manuscript as soon as convenient to the Lead Guest Editor Dr Amandine Sabadel, at amandine.sabadel@aut.ac.nz.

See Instructions for Authors on the journal homepage before making a formal submission to the New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research through the journal’s online submission system if your Expression of Interest (EOI) is selected. During submission, authors should select the relevant option indicating that their manuscript is intended for the Special Issue.

Note that an invitation to submit does not guarantee acceptance for publication, which will depend on the outcome of the normal peer review process and authors meeting critical time schedules. Accepted papers will be published online individually with final citation details ahead of their inclusion in the Special Issue collection.

If the corresponding author is affiliated with a growing range of global institutions covered by a transformative agreement with Wiley, they may be eligible to publish their articles Open Access at no cost. Otherwise, publishing under the traditional subscription model is completely free.