Russell, Frederick Stratten (1897–1984)

English marine biologist who studied the life histories and distribution of plankton. He also discovered a means of distinguishing between different species of fish shortly after they have hatched, when they are almost identical in appearance. He was knighted in 1965.

Russell was born in Bridport, Dorset, and studied at Cambridge. From 1924 he worked for the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth, becoming its director in 1945.

Having investigated the different types of behaviour of individual species of fish at various times of the year, and the distribution of two kinds of plankton, Russell was able to establish certain types of plankton as indicators of different types of water in the English Channel and the North Sea. He also offered a partial explanation for the difference in abundance of herring in different areas. Russell's studies of plankton and of water movements provided valuable information on which to base fishing quotas, the accuracy of which is essential to prevent overfishing and the depletion of fish stocks.

Russell also elucidated the life histories of several species of medusa by rearing the hydroids from parent medusae, and he published The Medusae of the British Isles (1953–70).