A detailed understanding of female reproductive functioning is important to many disciplines including anthropology, evolutionary theory, demography, psychology, and biomedicine. In this article, I describe strategies and methods that have been used successfully in community-based studies of human reproduction, many in remote locales, to produce high quality biomarker data. These techniques are applicable to a wide range of research questions and populations, and to persons from adolescence through senescence. I give particular attention to the inherent challenges imposed by the cyclical and somewhat unpredictable nature of the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis including the necessity and difficulty of ascertaining the timing and occurrence of ovulation, the limits of different sampling regimes for capturing fluctuations in reproductive hormones, and the critical importance of recognizing and, when possible, reducing selection bias. I discuss the relative advantages and disadvantages of collecting saliva, urine, and dried blood spots, and describe some of the subtleties involved in collecting contamination-free samples. Once samples are collected, they must be stored in a manner that minimizes degradation; I describe techniques to keep samples cold even without access to electricity or dry ice. I also discuss various issues that should be considered during initial discussions with a laboratory and when samples are assayed by the laboratory. I include examples of techniques that have worked well in actual field studies, and examples of flawed analytical approaches that should be avoided. With these and other tools, even under technology-sparse conditions, researchers can investigate variability in human physiology across the breadth of human habitats.

中文翻译：

---

评估女性生殖功能的现场方法和策略

详细了解女性生殖功能对许多学科都很重要，包括人类学、进化论、人口学、心理学和生物医学。在这篇文章中，我描述了在基于社区的人类生殖研究中成功使用的策略和方法，其中许多是在偏远地区，以产生高质量的生物标志物数据。这些技术适用于广泛的研究问题和人群，以及从青春期到衰老的人群。我特别关注下丘脑 - 垂体 - 卵巢轴的周期性和有些不可预测的性质所带来的固有挑战，包括确定排卵时间和发生的必要性和难度，不同采样制度捕捉生殖激素波动的限制, 以及认识到并在可能的情况下减少选择偏差的重要性。我讨论了收集唾液、尿液和干血斑的相对优势和劣势，并描述了收集无污染样本的一些微妙之处。收集样品后，必须以最大限度减少降解的方式储存它们；我描述了即使没有电或干冰也能保持样品低温的技术。我还讨论了在与实验室初步讨论以及实验室检测样品时应考虑的各种问题。我包括在实际现场研究中效果很好的技术示例，以及应该避免的有缺陷的分析方法的示例。使用这些和其他工具，即使在技术稀缺的条件下，