9600289 Kirkpatrick The International Research Fellow Awards Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twentyfour months of research abroad. 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 twenty-four-month postdoctoral research visit by Dr. R. Craig Kirkpatrick to work with Professor Ren Renmei at Beijing University. Dr. Kirkpatrick and Dr. Renmei will investigate changes in the group size of a Sichuan snub-nosed monkey, (Rhinopithecus roxellana), in relation to seasonal use of food resources. They will document these changes by systematic, direct observation. Data from vegetation transects, phenology plots, and nutritional assays will be combined to estimate food patch size and quality across food species. These data will provide direct tests of hypotheses derived from ecological theory that relates group size to food characters. An advantage of this study is that the same animals will be used in different environments, with seasonal change providing a natural experiment. ***
