F. E. J. Fry

Frederick Ernest Joseph Fry MBE FRSC (April 17, 1908 – May 22, 1989) was a Canadian ichthyologist and aquatic ecologist. He is known for his early research in physiological ecology and population dynamics in fishes.^[1][2][3] In the late 1940s, he became the first scientist to model how environmental factors affect the activity of fish.^[4] He was a 1959 Guggenheim Fellow, and served as president of several organizations including the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography (1951) American Fisheries Society (1966) and American Institute of Fishery Research Biologists (1972).

F. E. J. Fry
Born	(1908-04-17)April 17, 1908 Woking, Surrey, England
Died	May 22, 1989(1989-05-22) (aged 81)
Alma mater	University of Toronto
Awards	Flavelle Medal (1962) Canadian Centennial Medal (1968)
Scientific career
Institutions	University of Toronto

Fry was born in the English town of Woking, Surrey, April 17, 1908, to parents Ernest and Mabel Fry.^[5] His family immigrated to Canada in 1912, and after the first World War settled in Toronto. Fry attended the University of Toronto, earning a B.A. (1933), M.A. (1935), and PhD (1936). He joined the University of Toronto faculty as lecturer in 1938.

During World War II Fry served in the Royal Canadian Air Force from 1941 to 1945, working in aviation medicine, where he helped develop equipment aiding in respiration at high altitudes.^[2]

After the War, Fry returned to the University of Toronto as assistant professor in 1945, and became full professor of zoology in 1956, a position he held until his retirement in 1973.

One of his early studies of note was a long term field study of fishes of Lake Opeongo in Algonquin Provincial Park. In an influential 1949 paper,^[6] Fry developed "virtual population" analysis to understand effects of fishing on fish populations, a method which 50 years later was still in a chief way of determining total allowable catches in fisheries management.^[7]

His physiology papers "Effects of the Environment on Animal Physiology" in 1947, and "The Aquatic Respiration of Fish" in 1957 have become classic works in fisheries science.^[3]

Family

In 1935 Fry married Irene Marguerite Stewart, and they had three children.^[5][8]

Select works

• Fry, F. E. J (1947). Effects of the environment on animal activity. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Fry, F. E. J (1957). "The Aquatic Respiration of Fish". In Brown, M. E. (ed.). The Physiology of Fishes I. New York: Academic Press. pp. 1–63.
• Ruttner, Franz. Fundamentals of Limnology. Translated by Frey, D. G. Frey; Fry, F. E. J. University of Toronto Press.

References

1. Magnuson, J. J. (2010). "History and heroes: the thermal niche of fishes and long-term lake ice dynamics". Journal of Fish Biology. 77 (8): 1731–1744. doi:10.1111/j.1095-8649.2010.02781.x. PMID 21078087.
2. McCauley, Robert (1990). "Frederick Earnest Joseph Fry, M.B.E., M.A., Ph.D., D.Sc., F.R.S.C. - 1908-1989". Environmental Biology of Fishes. 27 (4): 241–242. doi:10.1007/bf00002742. S2CID 32030578.
3. Evans, D. O.; McCombie, A. M.; Casselman, J. M. (1990). "Frederick Ernest Joseph Fry, 1908–1989". Transactions of the American Fisheries Society. 119 (4): 571–573. doi:10.1577/1548-8659-119.4.571.
4. Farrell, Anthony P., ed. (2011). "Environmental Influences and the Fry Paradigm". Encyclopedia of Fish Physiology: From Genome to Environment. Academic Press. pp. 5839–. ISBN 978-0-08-092323-9.
5. "Fry, Frederick Ernest Joseph". The Canadian Who's Who. Vol. 14. University of Toronto Press. 1979. p. 356. ISBN 978-0-8020-4555-3.
6. Fry, F. E. J. (1949). "Statistics of a lake trout fishery". Biometrics. 5 (1): 27–67. doi:10.2307/3001890. JSTOR 3001890. PMID 18144441.
7. Whillans, Thomas H.; Regier, Henry A.; Christie, W. Jack (1990). "F. E. J. Fry's Field Studies: Good Field Data Provoke New Questions". Transactions of the American Fisheries Society. 119 (4): 574–584. doi:10.1577/1548-8659(1990)119<0574:FEJFFS>2.3.CO;2.
8. Allen G. Debus (1968). "Fry, Frederick Ernest Joseph". World Who's Who in Science: A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Scientists from Antiquity to the Present. Marquis Who's Who. p. 616.