ABSTRACT NARRATIVE Description: This proposal supports the collaboration of Dr. Frank E. Poirier, Ohio State University in a National Science Foundation dissertation research project with Ms. Shaily A. Menon an approved PhD candidate at Ohio State University. The Wildlife Institute of India at New Forest, Dehra Dun, directed by Dr. H.S. Panwar, has stated his Institute will collaborate in this research effort by giving Ms. Menon professional guidance from faculty members, assistance in obtaining the necessary permissions required in the pursuit of her research and providing library and computer facilities during the progress of her research. The proposed research is to be conducted in two parts. The first will be to test the hypotheses about habitat selection by the lion-tailed macaque, Macaca silenus, an endangered species of ______________ monkeys. The second part of the study will use the predicitive capabilities of Geographic Information System to suggest conservation strategies for a newly established wild-game preserve in India. The Wildlife Institute will carry out follow-up research and implement wildlife management plans suggested by the study. Scope: This doctoral dissertation research, by a female Indian national in South Indian rain forests with the cooperation of the premier wildlife organization in India, into the scientific ways and means to aid, protect an endangered species, has the possibilities, if successfully concluded, to overshadow difficulties that have traditionally hampered U.S. researchers conducting anthropological research in India, in addition to possibly providing the basis for further research and management prospectives toward possibly alleviating the environmental conditions that have brought a primate species to be declared endangered. This proposal does meet the objectives of the Science in Developing Countries Program to provide incremental support to dissertation improvement research in the furtherance of the exchange of scientific knowledge and in making contributions to the scientific infrastructure of a developing country.
