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AIM: As a response of pastoralists to climate change, nomadic migration deeply shaped Chinese history during the imperial era. Existing research on climate‐driven nomadic migration is conducted mainly on a national–continental scale. To advance the current work, we aim to resolve migratory movements at a provincial–regional scale using a large and long‐term historical dataset as a first attempt. The spatio‐temporal features of nomadic migration under climatic effects, specifically precipitation, are analysed in the theoretical context of behavioural ecology. LOCATION: China. TIME: Imperial era (220 BC–1910 AD). STUDY SUBJECT: Nomadic pastoralist minorities in imperial China. METHODS: We frame the analysis using an ideal free distribution model. A total of 1,842 historical location records of pastoralist immigration are empirically examined. Precipitation anomalies and nomadic migration are statistically assessed with nonparametric and Poisson regression methods, and temporal interdependencies among provincial–regional migratory movements are explored with a vector autoregressive model. RESULTS: We divide imperial China into six regions according to statistical results and geographic factors. Overall, decreased precipitation and drought provoked pastoralist migrations in a north‐to‐south direction. Northern nomads, with an apparent preference for central China as a major destination, triggered the most conflicts with resident agriculturalists. Nomads originating from the Tibetan minority regions moved north‐eastward into Qinghai Province as their main destination. MAIN CONCLUSIONS: Long‐term regional patterns of pastoralist migration are closely associated with drought‐induced ecological change in imperial China. Climate‐driven dynamics assessed with long‐term historical data facilitate the understanding of climate–ecology–society interactions in behavioural ecology and macroecology. Moreover, findings from imperial China may imply that cultural acceptance and communications could avoid conflicts between immigrants and original residents when facing mass migration, an issue of growing contemporary urgency in many parts of the world.

Methods: We adopt a Bayesian framework to estimate parasite prevalence rates in 51 districts in eight Latin American countries using the disease status of 170,220 individuals tested for infection with the intestinal roundworm Ascaris lumbricoides (H€ et al., [2011]: PLoS Negl Trop Dis 5:e1404). We then use district-level estimates of parasite prevalence and individual-level social data from 5,558 individuals in the same 51 districts (Latinobar� 2008) to assess claims of causal associations between parasite prevalence and sociocultural characteristics. Results: We find, contrary to Thornhill and Fincher, that parasite prevalence is positively associated with preferences for democracy, negatively associated with preferences for collectivism, and not associated with violent crime rates or gender inequality. A positive association between parasite prevalence and religiosity, as in Fincher and Thornhill (2012: Behav Brain Sci 35:61‐79), and a negative association between parasite prevalence and achieved education, as predicted by Eppig et al. (2010: Proc R S B: Biol Sci 277:3801‐3808), become negative and unreliable when reasonable controls are included in the model. We find support for all predictions derived from our hypothesis linking structural racism to both parasite prevalence and cultural outcomes. Conclusions: We conclude that best practices in biocultural modeling require examining more than one hypothesis, retaining individual-level data and its associated variance whenever possible, and adopting multilevel techniques

Aim To highlight the importance of combining the geographies of sociocultural adaptation and biodiversity risk for creating global change conservation strategies. Location Global. Methods We review global conservation adaptation strategies and the geographies that influence biological risk, as well as sociocultural capacity to set priorities for a conservation response. We then describe relationships among these geographies and discuss criteria for prioritizing areas that will have the greatest potential for effective adaptive action. Results Strategic conservation requires integrating biological geographies with physical and cultural geographies to maximize potential success with limited resources. Main conclusions Biogeography is important for strategic conservation, but it is not the only geography that matters. There is a physical geography of global change providing a complex backdrop against which biodiversity is responsive. Additionally, there is a human geography that drives the degree of threat through variations in anthropogenic disturbance of natural systems and also drives variation in potential mitigation through sociocultural capacity for conservation action. Conservation biogeography typically considers the physical geography of change and the biogeography of threat; it must expand to consider the sociocultural geography of intervention, negative and positive, if it is to be effective. Consideration of these varying geographies also drives different choices for how to implement conservation strategies.

Author(s): Evans, TP; Winterhalder, B | Abstract: We present a model that calculates incident solar radiation falling on terraced and unterraced fields in steep slope environments. The results are presented as a function of altitude, latitude, slope aspect, slope angle, and season. The net solar benefit or cost from slope leveling (terracing) differs significantly according to these situational factors. For instance, terracing will confer a net direct solar radiation benefit of 15 per cent on south-facing 30-degree slopes at the Equator for a typical growing season; it will reduce net annual direct solar receipt by 21 per cent on south-facing 30-degree slopes at 45° N latitude. Modified solar radiation must be considered as potentially important in the historical origins, functioning and abandonment of terracing. It should be a component in agronomic evaluation of modern terrace construction, restoration, or maintenance. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.

Author(s): Winterhalder, B | Abstract: Some paleonanthropologists invoke the competitive exclusion principle programmatically in support of a single‐species (or lineage) hypothesis of hominid evolution. Others apparently accept the association between competitive exclusion and a single species view, and develop multi‐species interpretations using only taxonomic concepts. This paper demonstrates that the competitive exclusion principle itself is too assumption‐bound to be appropriate for analyzing questions of hominid coexistence. Especially, the principle does not establish the ecological validity of the single‐species hypothesis. Contrary to its immediate appearances, the principle has developed historically and analytically to predict and explain the evolution and maintenance of diversity in communities. Used in this manner it constitutes an important basis for the study of hominid paleoecology. Niche concepts necessary to demonstrate this are introduced, and competition and other factors that may have influenced the realized niches of sympatric hominid species are discussed. Nearly all modifications of the competitive exclusion principle that make it more realistic also illuminate factors that generate stable coexistence among competing species. These factors and their organizing theory establish the relevance of a broad data base to the analysis of hominid paleoecology; they should help to guide research on the ecology of early homonid species and their interrelationships. Copyright © 1980 Wiley‐Liss, Inc., A Wiley Company