Search Results (1,197)

Pastoralist communities in Karamoja maintain close, multifaceted relationships with animals from early childhood, yet little is known about how children conceptualise animal emotions and cognitive abilities. This pilot study explored these conceptions among Kasimeri Primary School students in Karamoja, Uganda, within the AICS All-In-One Project (AID 012590/04/1). A cross-sectional survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire administered to 326 students (mean age 13 ± 2 years). Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and generalised linear models (GLMs). Most children attributed a wide range of emotions to animals, with anger (79.6%) and happiness (78.2%) being the most widely recognised and disgust the least attributed (63.2%). Emotion ascription differed significantly by emotion type (p < 0.001) and species (p = 0.004), with significant interactions (p = 0.022). Species differences emerged for several emotions (all p ≤ 0.006), with ruminants and chickens receiving higher attribution than dogs, reflecting different species’ roles in pastoral life. Students from pastoralist households showed lower emotion scores than those with non-farmer fathers (p = 0.025). Cognitive ability attribution also differed significantly across species (all p < 0.001). These findings challenge Western-pet-centred frameworks, highlighting the need for culturally grounded, One Health-oriented educational approaches integrating local animal knowledge with formal welfare and health curricula. Full article

Anthropogenic fires in agro-pastoral ecotones are understudied. Using Ordos data (1987–2020) and machine learning, we identified fire drivers and patterns. Fires clustered in eastern populated areas, increased after 2000, and peaked recently, with April seasonality. Human-related ignitions dominated. Slope, humidity, and precipitation consistently drove burned area. Fires shifted to lower, drier, cooler conditions, suggesting possible advancing fire season and increasing human influence. Ecological restoration has been associated with increased fuel continuity, and the temporal coincidence suggests a potential restoration–fire paradox, although this hypothesis requires direct testing. Management should prioritize spring vigilance and fuel integration; better data on human behavior and fine fuels are needed for early warning. Full article

This study investigates traditional plant knowledge among Gallo-Lucanian and Lucanian-speaking communities of inland Lucania (Basilicata), Southern Italy, through a cross-cultural and cross-temporal ethnobotanical approach. In a handful of mountain villages, a Gallo-Lucanian substratum survives, carried south by settlers from Piedmont and Liguria between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries; nine hundred years later, we ask what remains of the plants and of the words they brought with them. Fieldwork carried out in 2024 and 2025 with 90 participants in fifteen municipalities, half of them Gallo-Lucanian and half Lucanian speakers, documented 127 identified plant taxa and 12 emic taxa used mainly as wild food and household medicine. The two communities share most of their botanical repertoire: 74 taxa are cited by both, and their Jaccard similarity reaches 0.58. What sets them apart is not the flora but the lexicon, together with the emphasis placed on individual taxa, which differs significantly between the groups. Seven vernacular phytonyms have no counterpart in the surrounding Southern Italian dialects and preserve forms with plausible Piedmontese or Ligurian cognates; several survive attached to plants no longer gathered, so the word outlives the practice it once named. Set against surveys carried out in the same region in 2000–2005 and in inland Liguria, the contemporary repertoire has contracted, particularly among taxa of montane and subalpine distribution, in a landscape reshaped by pastoral decline, land abandonment and recurrent drought. Notably, a substantial share of the gathered taxa is crop wild relatives, among them Beta vulgaris, Daucus carota, Lactuca serriola, Cynara cardunculus, Pastinaca sativa, Asparagus acutifolius, Diplotaxis tenuifolia, Prunus spinosa and Pyrus spinosa, maintained in the interstitial habitats of terraces, field margins and abandoned pastures that these inner areas still preserve. Folk plant uses recorded in minority communities thus provide both a sensitive record of biocultural change and a route to identifying, conserving in situ, and potentially using plant genetic resources in marginal Mediterranean territories. Full article

The historical institution of the female diaconate represents a critical, yet frequently marginalized, paradigm of gender inclusion and ecclesiastical leadership within early and Byzantine Christianity. This study offers a critical, interdisciplinary synthesis of biblical, canonical, liturgical, and epigraphical testimonies from the first to the twelfth century to reconstruct the sacramental status and pastoral agency of ordained women. Utilizing an interdisciplinary methodology, we integrate text-critical analysis of early Byzantine Euchologia such as Codex Barberini gr. 336, with social history and epigraphical data from Jerusalem and Delphi. The research demonstrates that the setting apart of these women constituted a full sacramental ordination (cheirotonia) into the major orders, rather than a minor administrative blessing (cheirothesia). The findings illustrate that deaconesses wielded distinct administrative, instructional, and philanthropic authority, operating as essential pastoral mediators. Furthermore, we argue that the historical waning (atonia) of this parish-oriented office was driven by pragmatic liturgical mutations, specifically the rise of infant baptism and geopolitical shifts, rather than dogmatic prohibitions. Recovering this institutional memory provides a historically and spiritually validated framework for contemporary dialogues aimed at reviving the female diaconate to foster equitable, participatory, and socially engaged community practices today. Full article

Alpine meadows in the eastern Qinghai–Tibet Plateau serve as core water retention zones within China’s Three-River Source Region, while simultaneously functioning as vital grassland pastures. Livestock breeding activities impose severe disturbances on aquatic environments across this plateau area, raising concerns regarding microbial community shifts and associated environmental risks. Previous studies have explored how pastoral farming reshapes microbial assemblages within alpine meadow water bodies, yet few investigations have addressed such effects on aquatic microorganisms across an entire watershed scale. In the present study, we constructed a metagenomics dataset based on next-generation sequencing to survey spatial shifts in aquatic microbial composition and community structure along a livestock pollution gradient spanning the entire course of the Baihe River, a tributary of the upper Yellow River. Taxonomic classification revealed that domain bacteria dominated all microbial communities, with their relative abundances positively correlated with the intensity of livestock contamination. Additionally, microbial richness was markedly higher in stagnant headwater habitats than in lotic downstream reaches. The generated metagenomic dataset advances our mechanistic understanding of how livestock pollution drives spatial variations in aquatic microbial assemblages in alpine meadow waters and provides a critical baseline for environmental risk management and watershed microbial monitoring on the eastern Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. Full article

This study examines social media communication in Kenya to assess how dryland pastoral concerns are represented in national climate policy dialogues. Approximately 80% of Kenya’s land area consists of drylands that support pastoral livelihoods, yet recurring droughts and increasingly variable rainfall threaten these social-ecological systems. Although Sustainable Development Goal 13 (Climate Action) emphasizes adaptation, progress is typically measured using national indicators that may overlook local priorities. We analyzed digital communications from pastoral nongovernmental organizations, civil society organizations, newspapers, and government agencies using an adaptation pathways framework to examine links among climate risks, governance, and decision-making. Five themes emerged: water security, rangeland degradation and mobility, climate communication, gender and social inclusion, and climate finance. Kenya has developed relatively strong national climate policies, but social media reveals a persistent implementation gap between national policy and local pastoral priorities. Pastoral communities consistently emphasize Indigenous and local knowledge, women’s leadership, community participation, and locally appropriate adaptation strategies. Social media provides a novel source of evidence for identifying these local priorities and informing more participatory, place-based climate adaptation. Full article

This study reconstructs the agricultural landscape of Cyprus in the early 1830s, a time of extraordinary socio-economic pressures on the island and immediately prior to the economic and administrative transformations of the later nineteenth century, drawing on the Ottoman property survey of 1832/33, an island-wide register documenting over 20,000 households and their assets across 622 principal settlements. The records were converted into a geospatial database and analysed through GIS, spatial statistics, and a transparent, reproducible landscape classification framework, complemented by historical cartographic evidence. The reconstruction reveals distinct agricultural regions shaped by environmental conditions, settlement patterns, and the interplay between subsistence and market-oriented production, with marked concentrations of viticulture, olive cultivation, cotton, grain, sericulture, and pastoralism. A hierarchical classification assigns 471 settlements (77%) to a single-dominant landscape type, 92 (15%) to co-dominant zones, and 50 (8%) to diversified categories, collectively synthesised into a broader interpretation of the landscape as an integrated socioecological system. The findings demonstrate that Ottoman surveys offer considerable, albeit bounded, potential for historical landscape reconstruction, providing a dated baseline for the study of Mediterranean agricultural landscapes and a transferable methodological framework applicable to any region with comparable historical records. Full article

Pastoral imagery in Han dynasty mural tombs of China’s northern frontier may offer unique visual evidence for examining subsistence patterns, ethnic interactions, and the processes of elite identity construction in imperial borderlands. Existing scholarship has predominantly interpreted this motif through three frameworks—livelihood reflection, Hu-Han ethnic integration, and the origins of Chinese landscape painting—yet has not fully addressed its functional transformation within mortuary contexts and the underlying spatial logic of identity construction. Drawing on seven systematically documented mural tombs from the Ordos Plateau and Hetao Plain, this study combines archaeological typology, formal iconographic analysis, and spatial contextual analysis to trace the full evolutionary trajectory of pastoral imagery. This study suggests that the motif may be interpreted as undergoing a transition away from explicitly sacred contexts toward a closer association with material representation from the late Western Han to the late Eastern Han: early stylized renditions, derived from the Central Plains xian (immortal) mountain iconographic paradigm, appear to have served the construction of a sacred cosmic space for post-mortem ascension, while later realistic depictions were increasingly repositioned in storage side chambers, potentially functioning as visual representations of manorial livestock assets. Spatially, pastoral imagery gradually formed a stable “Inner Manor/Outer Wilderness” sequential narrative, which visually domesticated the heterogeneous frontier wilderness and enabled local magnates to construct a transcultural elite identity integrating Han ritual orthodoxy and control over diverse frontier resources. This study recalibrates the regional position of pastoral imagery in the secularization of Han mortuary art, and is consistent with a perspective for understanding the northern frontier as a dynamic transcultural frontier zone of cultural negotiation and integration. Full article

The text examines the formation and persistence of the Swiss national imaginary as a construct shaped by enduring symbols, narratives, and figurative images. Building on theories of collective identity and Charles Taylor’s concept of the social imaginary, it argues that Swiss national identity emerged through a long cultural process in which the Alps, the herdsman, and eventually the peasant became dominant symbolic figures. Through literary works, historical writing, visual culture, and political discourse, these images acquired normative force and provided a shared framework for interpreting collective experience. The study traces how eighteenth-century idealizations of Alpine life, reinforced by authors such as Haller, Rousseau, and Gessner, established a myth of origins that overshadowed later political transformations. It shows how the bourgeois elites of 1848 chose symbolic continuity over revolutionary rupture, allowing the peasant figure to become the central bearer of national distinctiveness. The analysis highlights tensions between modernity and tradition, progress and nostalgia, and urban and rural imaginaries. It concludes that despite attempts to introduce modern symbolic figures, the Alpine-pastoral tableau continues to dominate the Swiss imaginary, revealing a persistent divergence between Switzerland’s historical development and the symbolic field through which it understands itself. Full article

Smart ranching stands at the forefront of digital transformation in modern animal husbandry, with sensing and intelligent perception technologies serving as the critical infrastructure of the perception layer. In contrast to existing reviews that have broadly surveyed generic technologies or global applications, this review systematically examines advanced sensing and intelligent perception technologies through three integrated perspectives—technical principles, system architecture, and application performance—with particular emphasis placed on forage-harvesting mechanization and intelligent livestock farming in the grassland pastoral areas of China. Although the underlying sensing principles are universally applicable, the adaptation challenges and bottleneck analyses presented herein are specifically contextualized to the environmental and operational conditions of northern Chinese grassland pastoral areas. Full article

Elm sparse grassland, dominated by Ulmus pumila, serves as a critical ecological barrier in Northern China, yet the specific climatic mechanisms governing its distribution remain poorly quantified, hindering effective restoration. This study employed the Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) model to disentangle the primary drivers of this ecosystem, specifically addressing whether its distribution is governed by moisture limitation or a stricter thermal regime. Analyzing 94 occurrence records and 13 climatic variables, the model achieved high predictive accuracy (AUC = 0.92) and identified the annual temperature range (ART) as the predominant determinant of macro-distribution (30.1% contribution), surpassing moisture variables such as annual precipitation (19.3%). The results demonstrate that the vegetation is strictly confined to a continental climate envelope with an ART of 46.2~50.7 °C and a coldness index of −70.1~−36.1 °C, while optimal precipitation (313~497 mm) acts as a secondary filter maintaining the open-woodland structure. These findings establish a hierarchical filtering model where a strict thermal regime acts as the primary “gatekeeper” setting absolute geographical boundaries, while moisture availability determines habitat quality within those limits. Consequently, this study advocates for a paradigm shift in ecological engineering—such as the Three-North Shelterbelt Program—from moisture-centric approaches to “climate-smart” restoration that prioritizes specific thermal constraints. Adhering to these precise climatic envelopes is essential to prevent maladaptation and ensure the long-term sustainability of restoration efforts amidst global climate change. Full article

Monthly dynamics of ground-dwelling beetles remain poorly resolved in agro-pastoral ecotones. From June to September 2025, beetles were sampled monthly with pitfall traps in 81 permanent 1 m × 1 m quadrats across nine plots representing temperate steppe, temperate desert steppe, and lowland meadow in the Tacheng Basin, Xinjiang, China. Specimens were identified to family, and analyses used family-level data. Assemblage composition varied significantly among months, whereas neither the overall habitat effect nor the habitat × month interaction was significant. Habitat × month interactions were significant for total beetle activity-density and for Tenebrionidae, Scarabaeidae, and Carabidae activity-density. Tenebrionidae dominated catches in July and August, whereas Scarabaeidae contributed the largest proportions in June and September. Significant within-month habitat contrasts in diversity metrics were detected only for Margalef richness in June. Neither distance class nor the distance class × month interaction was significantly associated with activity-density, diversity metrics, or assemblage composition. After conditioning on plot identity and month, measured vegetation and soil variables did not significantly explain residual assemblage variation. These findings highlight pronounced monthly turnover and the value of repeated sampling across months during the June–September period. Full article

The expansion and spatial concentration of livestock and poultry farming have intensified the mismatch between manure nutrient pressures and regional environmental carrying capacity, creating persistent obstacles to the sector’s green transformation. Using a balanced panel dataset covering 21 prefecture-level cities and autonomous prefectures in Sichuan Province from 2015 to 2024, we evaluate theoretical environmental carrying capacity (ECC), production comparative advantage (PCA), environmental comparative advantage (ECA), and comprehensive comparative advantage (CCA) under nitrogen and phosphorus constraints. The framework considers cropland as well as the potential nutrient assimilation capacity of grassland and forestland under suitable manure application conditions. We measure ECA by comparing residual carrying capacity per unit of actual livestock population with the provincial benchmark. We construct CCA using a signed geometric mean that preserves the direction of environmental constraints when ECA is negative. Prefecture-level spatial patterns are mapped using polygon-based choropleths. The Northwest Sichuan Ecological Economic Zone and the Panxi Economic Zone show the strongest PCA, while Zigong and Dazhou also retain production advantages outside these core areas. Under the nitrogen constraint, Ya’an and Panzhihua record negative ECA values. Under the phosphorus constraint, high ECA values are concentrated in Ganzi, Aba, and Liangshan. CCA is concentrated in western Sichuan and displays a clear spatial gradient, with the Northwest Sichuan Ecological Economic Zone ranking first under both nutrient constraints. These patterns indicate that the spatial layout of livestock and poultry farming should be better aligned with the existing production base, land-based nutrient assimilation capacity, and ecological protection constraints. Differentiated regional regulation, species-specific specialization, and coordinated manure recycling across land types can improve the fit between livestock production and environmental carrying conditions. The framework provides a quantitative basis for spatially differentiated livestock planning in Sichuan and can be adapted to other mountainous agro-pastoral transition regions through locally calibrated technical parameters and land-use assumptions. Full article

Climate change increasingly endangers precious indigenous sheep germplasm resources distributed across diverse Chinese landscapes, and systematically decoding their polygenic climate-adaptive genetic mechanisms is essential for targeted breed conservation and long-term sustainable pastoral production. Whole-genome resequencing data from 93 individuals covering six representative local sheep breeds were analyzed in this work. After filtering highly collinear climate variables, three mature landscape genomic approaches were jointly applied to identify environment-linked gene variants, while two predictive metrics across ten CMIP6 future climate scenarios quantified each breed’s long-term adaptive risks. Six temperature- and water-related environmental factors jointly drove sheep population genetic differentiation, with temperature fluctuation indices showing markedly stronger explanatory power. Detected adaptive genes were significantly enriched in ion transport, energy metabolism and cellular stress response pathways. Future projections indicated western breeds (Bayinbuluke, Cele Black, Xiahe) face severe maladaptation risks under high-emission SSP370 scenarios by 2100, whereas central and eastern breeds possess much broader climate tolerance. This study systematically reveals the core genomic basis of ovine climate adaptation and quantifies distinct breed-specific climate vulnerability, providing solid reliable theoretical support for precision germplasm conservation and selective breeding of climate-resilient sheep varieties. Full article

Sustainable livestock production in the arid regions of Central Asia depends almost entirely on groundwater resources. However, regional groundwater quality remains insufficiently characterized from the perspective of long-term water security and sustainable pasture management. Understanding the interaction between natural hydrogeochemical evolution and anthropogenic contamination is therefore essential for developing climate-resilient groundwater management strategies. This study presents a comparative hydrogeochemical assessment based on 101 groundwater samples collected from 58 sites in the Karaganda region and 43 sites in the Ulytau region during a single dry-season campaign (June–July 2025), with field sampling conducted across 4630 km² of active pastureland within a combined regional area of 409,070 km². Groundwater in Ulytau showed substantially greater mineralization, with a median TDS of 1027 mg/L compared with 538 mg/L in Karaganda; the proportion of samples exceeding 1000 mg/L was 53.5% (23/43) and 29.3% (17/58), respectively (Fisher’s exact p = 0.023). Median NO₃⁻ concentrations were also markedly higher in Ulytau (35.0 mg/L) than in Karaganda (5.0 mg/L), with the 50 mg/L guideline exceeded in 46.5% (20/43) vs. 19.0% (11/58) of samples (p = 0.004). NO₃⁻ and TDS were not significantly correlated in Karaganda (r_s = 0.108, p = 0.418), whereas a moderate positive relationship occurred in Ulytau (r_s = 0.388, p = 0.010). These results indicate that regional salinization is predominantly controlled by geogenic hydrochemical evolution, while nitrate contamination represents a localized anthropogenic pressure associated with vulnerable water points. The pronounced quantitative contrast between the two regions highlights the need for region-specific groundwater protection and management strategies to support sustainable livestock production and long-term water security in Central Kazakhstan. Rather than providing only a regional hydrochemical description, the present study evaluates groundwater quality as a sustainability indicator for livestock production, groundwater security, and regional adaptation to increasing water stress. Groundwater quality differed significantly between the two regions, with Ulytau exhibiting consistently higher mineralization, more frequent nitrate exceedances, and higher groundwater vulnerability. Statistical analyses confirmed that groundwater quality deterioration is controlled by different combinations of geogenic processes and localized anthropogenic impacts in the two hydrogeological settings. The findings demonstrate that groundwater quality represents a critical component of sustainable livestock production in Central Kazakhstan. The proposed regional groundwater vulnerability framework provides practical guidance for groundwater protection, climate adaptation, and the sustainable management of pastoral water resources under increasing environmental pressures. Full article