This award provides continuing support for a Research Experiences for Undergraduates Site administered through the School for Field Studies. This program will train eight students in research methods and theory of Primate Social Behavior and Ecology at The School For Field Studies training site in Catemaco, Veracruz State, Mexico. During the summer, students will take a 30 day course in which they will conduct directed and individual research projects on stumptail macaques, Macaca arctoides. Daily lectures and computer/statistics laboratory sessions help students design their projects, collect data, analyze those data, and interpret their results within a scientific framework. Projects will focus on one of three areas: (1) influences of observers on social interactions, (2) social ecological analyses and (3) fine grained analyses of patterns of courtship and mating. Tentative statistical analyses of the data, a preliminary paper, and an oral report are completed at the end of each course. During the academic year following the field course, students take independent study courses at their home institution in which they analyze and write up the results of their research with the senior faculty member. By the end of the academic year following the field course, students submit a paper describing the results of their project for publication. A similar one year REU site proposal, funded in 1988 and now at its midpoint, has proven successful.
