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Article History

Received: 23 August 2025

Revised: 17 December 2025

Accepted: 18 December 2025

First Online: 5 January 2026

Declarations

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: Electrofishing, treatment, and tagging of the study fish was performed in accordance with a license 2,204,267 issued by MAST, the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority for this specific research. This license is in accordance with Icelandic laws on animal welfare (55/2013) and the corresponding regulation (460/2017), implemented in Iceland directly from the Directive 2010/63/EU, of the European parliament and of the council, on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes. Hence, this license was issued after a careful scrutiny of all study procedures by a designated committee of veterinarians at MAST in accordance with international laws on appropriate and ethical treatment of animals in scientific studies. All fish were anesthetised with the recommended dosage of 2-phenoxyethanol (300 ppm). No fish died or was visibly injured during electrofishing, anaesthesia, or tagging. All sampling was performed by trained staff of Hólar University, and during the laboratory component of the study, fish were kept under conditions dictated by the operational license issued by MAST for aquaculture facilities of Hólar University. Electrofishing in the river Grímsá was done with the permission of the landowners. A separate permit (FE-1156) was obtained from MAST for the health and transportation of the 96 fish between the study stream and aquacultural facilities of Hólar University. As this work involved only standard handling and monitoring procedures covered under existing MAST permits, no additional approval from an ethics committee was required for this study. Following the field component of the study, all fish were released into their native stream (River Grímsá).

: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.