SOCIAL AND REPRODUCTIVE PATTERNS IN NEOTROPICAL PRIMATES - RELATION TO ECOLOGY, BODY-SIZE, AND INFANT CARE

The papers in this issue stem from a symposium presented at the 1992 I nternational Primatological Congress in Strasbourg, France. Due to the paucity of information on social organization, reproduction, and the relation of these to ecology in neotropical primates, we organized thi s symposium, which included researchers conducting comparative studies and those examining aspects of socioecology in single platyrrhine spe cies. The papers in the symposium are organized around three issues: 1 ) the relation between body size, ecology, and reproduction (papers by Dietz et al., Tardif, and Williams; et al.); 2) ranging and dispersal patterns as determinants of social structure (papers by Boinski and M itchell, Norconk and Kinzey, and Kinzey and Cunningham); 3) phylogenet ic and comparative analyses of behavioral and anatomical traits (Ford and Garber). Within these areas, the papers provide new information an d new syntheses of existing information on platyrrhine socioecology. I n addition, many detail innovative methodological approaches which cou ld fruitfully be applied to other primates. (C) 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.