Rate My Professor Alexander Arkhipkin

Dr. Alexander Arkhipkin serves as honorary and adjunct staff in the Department of Marine Science at the University of Otago. He is a Principal Scientist and Senior Fisheries Scientist with the Falkland Islands Government Fisheries Department in Stanley, Falkland Islands, where he has headed the Scientific Section since 1998, leading scientific research and providing management advice for commercial cephalopod and finfish stocks around the Falklands. Arkhipkin graduated from the Biological Faculty of Lomonosov Moscow State University and defended his PhD thesis titled 'Age and growth of the squid of family Ommastrephidae' in 1989 at the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology in Moscow. Prior to joining the Falklands fisheries department, he spent 16 years at the Atlantic Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography (AtlantNIRO) in Kaliningrad, Russia, investigating the biology, ecology, and fisheries of cephalopods across the Northwest Atlantic, tropical Atlantic, Southwest Atlantic, Northwest Pacific, tropical Pacific, and Southeast Pacific. In 1995, he worked as Visiting Professor at Istituto di Tecnologia della Pesca e del Pescato in Mazara del Vallo, Italy, focusing on population parameters and abundance of Mediterranean squid. In 2015, he held the William Evans Visiting Fellowship at the University of Otago.

Arkhipkin's research specializations encompass marine biology, ecology, fisheries science, cephalopod reproductive biology, biological oceanography, ichthyology, fish biology, and fisheries management. He has advanced techniques for ageing cephalopods using statoliths as life recorders and contributed to understanding population dynamics, stock structure, migrations, and environmental influences on short-lived species. His major publications include 'World Squid Fisheries' (2015, Reviews in Fisheries Science & Aquaculture, 439 citations), 'Global Proliferation of Cephalopods' (2016, Current Biology, 453 citations), 'A Review of the Biology of the Jumbo Squid Dosidicus gigas' (2001, Fisheries Research, 626 citations), 'Environmental Effects on Cephalopod Population Dynamics: Implications for Management of Fisheries' (2014, Advances in Marine Biology, 284 citations), and 'Statoliths as ‘Black Boxes’ (Life Recorders) in Squid' (2005, Marine and Freshwater Research, 225 citations). With over 9,000 citations on Google Scholar, his work has profoundly impacted global cephalopod research and sustainable fishery practices, particularly for species like Illex argentinus and Doryteuthis gahi. He also holds an honorary research fellowship at the University of Aberdeen.