Individual traits are the results of mass and energy transfers controlled by intrinsic (e.g. the species or the individual) and extrinsic factors (e.g. the environmental conditions it encountered). These traits are often key to understand how new, potentially stressful, environmental conditions may impact the dynamics of small pelagic fish (SPF) populations. However, SPF individual traits are challenging to study in the field, challenging to study experimentally, and not surprisingly, challenging to model as well. From a bioenergetic perspective, being multiple-batch spawners with indeterminate fecundity reduces for instance our ability to evaluate SPF energy budget due to the large uncertainty in their annual reproductive investment. To overcome these knowledge gaps, Dynamic Energy Budget (DEB) theory provides a conceptual and quantitative framework to model the life cycle of an organism, from the embryo to the juvenile and adult stage, according to the environmental conditions it encounters. Over the past 15 years, several studies have been focusing on developing DEB models for small pelagic fish or have been including a DEB module in their approach. This talk will address the contributions, limitations and future perspectives that this approach can provide. Two important messages will be discussed: (i) developing DEB models for small pelagic fish could foster a stronger coupling between field, experimental and modeling studies and (ii) comparing life-history traits of closely related SPF species using DEB models is a clearly difficult task worth undertaking as a community of SPF scientists.