2.1: Introduction to human ecology Flashcards
Human ecology
Trans-disciplinary study of the dialectical relationship between humans and their environment
Give an example of a human ecology study
How do fisher peoples in South-East Asia fish in such dangerous waters?
How are fisheries impacting the world?
What is the impact of fisheries socio-politically?
What is the impact on the health and wellbeing of fisher peoples?
What are the three objectives of human ecology research?
- Understanding biological variation and evolution
- Understanding cultural variation and evolution
- Understanding the implication of dynamic human/environment interactions on human health and planet health
Which 6 disciplines does human ecology combine?
Biology Natural science Evolutionary anthropology Environmental physiology Social anthropology Biological anthropology
Human adaptation
Study of how humans cope (physiologically) with environmental stress (social and biotic environments)
Give 3 examples of fisher adaptations to environmental stress
- The Inuit fisher people have genetic adaptation to nutritional environmental stress so they can metabolise a lot of fat without the negative effects of a high fat diet
- Huge diaspora of people across the coast of West Africa with the migration of fish along the same coast
- Physical environmental stress of the cold in early childhood can condition hand temperature
What is Moran’s definition of human adaptation (1979)?
Population change due to changes in gene frequencies that give reproductive success in a particular environment
What is Frisancho’s definition of human adaption (1993)?
Any change in an organism due to exposure to an altered environment that enables the organism to function more efficiently; from individuals to populations
What is McElroy & Townsend’s definition of human adaptation (2015)?
Changes, modifications, and variations in physical and behavioural traits enabling a person or group to meet the challenges of a given environment
Describe the seminal work on adaptation in the 1950s
Allison and Livingston worked on adaptation and malaria
The sickle-cell anaemia allele persists in heterozygous individuals who are resistant to malaria; human culture itself is responsible for the selection of this gene in human populations
It was the first real articulation of the fact that human culture affects infectious disease, which can play a role in human evolution
Proving that multiple disciplines could explain ecological origin of health problems and how to deal with them
Describe the International Biological Program study in the 1960s and 70s
Study in 40 countries consisting of 230 projects to examine the ecology of mankind by looking at 3 different environments: high altitude, cold stress, and heat stress
What were the biological and non-biological findings of the International Biological Program study in the 1960s and 70s?
Biological: humans respond to environmental stressors through phenotypic acclimatisation rather than genetic adaptation
Non-biological: challenging social, economic and political conditions exerted greater pressure on human biology than physical environmental stressors; poverty and powerlessness limited adaptive capacity
State and describe the 3 dimensions of adaptions
- Cultural: rapid, shared, learned social behaviour allows cumulative cultural change
- Physiological: short term acclimation (sweating), long term acclimatization (increased red blood cells), plasticity during developmental physical growth
- Genetic: natural selection upon genetic variation that is inherited over generations
What are the 2 human buffers against environmental stress?
Culture & technology
Physiology
Considering human buffers against environmental stress, are genetic adaptations now irrelevant for humans?
No
They are still required to access resources
Buffers could fail against environmental changes (climate change, disease)
List the 4 aspects of 90s-present biocultural research
- Growth and developmental studies in response to nutritional stress
- How cultures create biologies
- How daily events and political economic processes affect blood pressure, stress hormones, etc.
- How inequality gets under the skin
What 3 aspects did 21st Century biocultural research renew interest in?
- The impact of global physical and biotic environmental stressors
- Emerging and re-emerging infectious disease
- Increased inequality
What evidence suggests we are in the anthropocene (3)?
- Scale and rate of change of CO2 and methane concentrations
- Plastics likely to leave identifiable fossil records
- Unprecedented speeds of species extinction
What are the 4 ecosystem services?
- Supporting
- Provisioning
- Regulating
- Cultural
What are the 5 constituents of human well being?
- Security
- Basic material for good life
- Health
- Good social relations
- Freedom of choice and action
What are the 9 environmental changes and ecosystem impairments due to human pressure?
Climate change Stratospheric ozone depletion Forest clearance and land-cover change Land degradation and desertification Wetlands loss and damage Biodiversity loss Freshwater depletion and contamination Urbanisation and its impacts Damage to costal reefs and ecosystems
What are the 3 types of health impacts that arise from environmental changes and ecosystem impairments?
- Direct health impacts
- ‘Eco-system-mediated’ health impacts
- Indirect health impacts
Give 3 examples of direct impacts that arise from environmental changes and ecosystem impairments
- Extreme weather events (floods, heat waves, landslides)
- Increased exposure to ultraviolet radiation
- Air pollution
Give 6 examples of ‘eco-system-mediated’ health impacts that arise from environmental changes and ecosystem impairments
- Altered infectious disease risk
- Reduced food yields (malnutrition, stunting)
- Water shortage
- Depletion of natural medicines
- Mental health (personal, community)
- Impacts of aesthetic/cultural impoverishment
Give 4 examples of indirect health impacts that arise from environmental changes and ecosystem impairments
- Diverse health consequences of livelihood loss
- Population displacement (including slum dwelling)
- Conflict
- Inappropriate adaptation and mitigation
Syndemic
Situation where diseases cluster together within a population/within an individual’s body
Ecosyndemics
Changes in the physical environment act to increase the synergies between the disease clusters
Example of ecosyndemics
Global warming, pollution, and toxins increase asthma and respiratory infections, which leads to respiratory bacterial infections and pneumonia
State the 4 next steps for global environmental change and human health research
- Explore multiple health outcomes from an ecosystem alteration, rather than may generate more a single health outcome
- Factor in human responses and adaptations to environmental changes
- Be more specific about whose health is being studied within a population or explicitly disaggregate different segments of a population to look at differential impacts
- Needs to be more interdisciplinary
