9414129 Strier Knowing the reproductive state of particular female primates (whether pregnant, near the time of ovulation, and so on) is an important, but thusfar very difficult, thing to know in understanding and predicting behavioral patterns, both of males and females. There are indications that assays of feces may provide an invaluable, non-invasive way for evaluating steroid levels (and hence reproductive states). However, the use of fecal steroid assays in this way remains controversial, and a thorough validation of assay techniques is required before these results can be interpreted and applied with any confidence. This one year exploratory grant will provide such a validation test that a group of experts in the field have been developing. They will utilize a set of fecal samples obtained previously fromwild females whose behavior has been followed on a daily basis, and they will also be analyzing daily urine and fecal samples collected from 2 reproductively active female monkeys to see how the two sources of steroids "track" one another.
