Validation of Fecal Steroid Assays for Muriqui Monkeys (Brachyteles arachnoides)

9414129 Strier了解特定雌性灵长类动物的生殖状态（是否怀孕，是否接近排卵期，等等）对于理解和预测雄性和雌性的行为模式是很重要的，但迄今为止非常困难。有迹象表明，粪便检测可能为评估类固醇水平（从而评估生殖状态）提供一种宝贵的、非侵入性的方法。然而，以这种方式使用粪便类固醇测定法仍然存在争议，在这些结果可以有信心地解释和应用之前，需要对测定技术进行彻底的验证。这项为期一年的探索性拨款将提供该领域一组专家一直在开发的验证测试。他们将利用之前从野生雌性猴子身上获得的粪便样本，这些雌性猴子的行为每天都被跟踪，他们还将分析从2只繁殖活跃的雌性猴子身上收集的每天的尿液和粪便样本，以了解两种类固醇来源是如何“追踪”彼此的。

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.