9405166 Shipley This award is under the International Junior Investigator and Postdoctoral Fellows Program, which enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twelve months of research abroad at research centers of proven excellence. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will support a ten month postdoctoral research visit by Dr. Lisa A. Shipley to work with Dr. Per Lundberg at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Umea, Sweden. Their research is designed to examine the question of predicting optimal bite size for animals of different sizes based on tradeoffs between intake rate and nutrient quality. They will do this by modelling the optimal bite size based on animal size, the relationship between fiber and plant secondary chemistry and bite size or twig diameter, the digestive physiology of the animal, and the relationship between bite size and dry matter intake rate. The predictions will be compared with field and lab observations of four free-ranging browsing herbivore species of the boreal ecosystem of northern Sweden feeding in winter on dormant browses. ***
