Richard Sherley is a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Animal Demography Unit and Marine Research Institute at the University of Cape Town. He has conducted research on seabirds in southern Africa for the last seven years, focusing on understanding how their productivity, survival and dispersal are influenced by the anthropogenic and environmental changes occurring in their marine ecosystem. In particular, he is interested in research that applies ecological theory to create tangible conservation benefits and in understanding how the conditions that animals experience early in life may influence later fitness and impact on population dynamics.