Soil health is essential for a resilient ecosystem. European Union proposed a Soil Monitoring Law for a legal framework of soils health. This study proposes a way to assess the mineral soil health. A database of mineral soils containing < 20% organic matter and consisting of 10 soil classes and 22 soil types was used. There were four altitudinal groups (HM-high mountains; LM-low mountains and high hills, LH-low hills, PL-low plains), covering the vegetation/climate floors, two land uses (forestland and grassland combined, and cropland), and three soil textures (coarse-CO, loamy-LO, and clayey-CL). Both SOC/Clay ratios and observed per mean SOC (O/M SOC) ratios were calculated for 19 regions. For SOC/Clay, the 1/13, 1/10 and 1/8 thresholds were used, whereas O/M SOC categories were grouped as: “low”, “intermediate”, “high”, “very high” health. SOC/Clay and O/M SOC ratios combined were used to characterize soil health. SOC sequestration depends on many factors that are specific for each pedo-climatic region and texture, and so is the soil characterization as healthy or not healthy. The recommended simultaneous application of these two indicators revealed specific SOC content values as reference levels for a good soil health, which decrease from the wetter climates towards the drier ones. SOC content considerably differed among pedo-climatic regions, and soil health should be compared within the same regions that have specific SOC sequestration conditions. Correlations between support points SOC values and the aridity index (Iar) allow separation between “healthy” and “non-healthy” soil condition for any climate, vegetation floor and land use.

In many areas of The Gambia, West Africa, population crowding in a degraded environment has forced close interactions of diurnal primate species with humans. We assessed intestinal parasitic infection prevalence and diversity in 4 diurnal non-human primate (NHP) species, Chlorocebus sabaeus, Erythrocebus patas, Papio papio and Piliocolobus badius across 13 sampling sites. The effect of human activity, determined by the human activity index, and NHP group size on parasite richness was assessed using a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM). The most common protozoa identified were Entamoeba coli (30%) and Iodamoeba buetschlii (25%). The most common helminths were Strongyloides fuelleborni (11%), Oesophagostomum spp. (9%) and Trichuris trichiura (9%). Two of six (6%) Cyclospora spp. infections detected sequenced as Cyclospora cercopitheci (both in C. sabaeus). The more arboreal P. badius trended towards a lower prevalence of intestinal parasites, although this was not statistically significant (χ2 P = 0.105). Human activity or group size did not have any significant effect on parasite richness for P. badius (P = 0.161 and P = 0.603) or P. papio (P = 0.817 and P = 0.607, respectively). There were insufficient observations to fit a GLMM to E. patas or C. sabaeus. Our reports present the richness and diversity of intestinal parasites in 4 diurnal NHPs in The Gambia, West Africa. Despite desertification and habitat loss, our results indicate that the prevalence and diversity of intestinal parasites in Gambian NHPs are seemingly unaffected by human activity. Further investigation with a larger dataset is required to better elucidate these findings.

This article explores the formation of the University of California amidst widespread populist agitation against university leaders in the 1870s. These complaints were rooted in corruption by the Board of Regents as well as their failure to honor the requirement of the 1862 Morrill Act to offer practical training in “agriculture and the mechanic arts.” It argues that Yosemite served as a vehicle through which representatives of the University of California countered charges of elitism and fostered a reputation for trustworthy stewardship of public land. These efforts were visible to the public through literary texts, newspapers, public lectures, nature writings, and other forms of popular literature. By positioning Yosemite as a site of middlebrow intellectual exchange and an alternative to the demonstration farms established at other land grant institutions, professors such as Joseph LeConte helped quell populist critiques and strengthen affective ties to the university. The resulting shift in popular sentiment helped secure public trust in the university for the remainder of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

What is climate history? How can it serve as a lens through which to view other historical questions? This roundtable identifies key themes in Gilded Age and Progressive Era climate history, and demonstrates that this era was pivotal for both scientific and cultural perceptions of climate. It also shows how climate history can illuminate other subjects, including histories of science, medicine, health, and race. Further, it considers present-day implications. This roundtable began as a session sponsored by the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era at the 2024 Organization of American Historians annual meeting in New Orleans. What follows is a conversation based on that panel, a selected bibliography of scholarly sources, and a collection of primary sources for teaching climate history.

Autism spectrum disorder is defined by the presence of sustained problems in areas of social cognition and social understanding alongside repetitive and/or restricted patterns of behaviour. Behavioural presentations and developmental trajectories in autism are highly heterogeneous. For most, characteristics variably continue across the lifespan, and, for many, they overlap with numerous overrepresented comorbid combinations spanning behavioural, psychiatric and somatic domains. The current autism diagnostic systems (DSM-5, ICD-11) reflect this heterogeneity, focusing on discerning different assistance needs and symptom severity combinations. An emerging view on the pluralisation of autism – ‘the autisms’ – based on different severity levels and different developmental trajectories is gaining popularity, bolstered by the introduction of the grouping ‘profound autism’ and observations of non-persistence of autism for some. We advance the case for expanding the definition of the plural autisms based also on the numerous different aetiological routes that can lead to autism. Various genetic conditions, susceptibility to infectious agents, non-infectious environmental exposures and immune-mediated occurrences have all been observed to culminate in a diagnosis of autism. As a triad, aetiology, presentation intensity and developmental trajectory offer new ways to classify the autisms, with potentially important implications for research and practice.

The world faces a perfect storm of existential risk, with a deadly new pandemic, an escalating climate crisis, and the constant threat posed by nuclear weapons. The essential facts and dangers for all of these are long- known, but they have been downplayed or neglected until presenting an immediate threat – by which time it may be too late. We need to have a clear understanding of these risks, but also need to understand the deeper reasons why they have not been properly addressed. To a large extent these lie in the dogmas of military and political elites and in an optimistic preference for short-term results. Civil society and the world community of nations should come together to work for real change, as has already been achieved with the 2020 Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. They should seek to safeguard the welfare of future generations, giving priority to that interest. The alternative is the growing risk of multiple disasters that could prove terminal.

The four major countries of East Asia—China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—form one of the most densely populated regions on earth, and through the course of the late 20th and early 21st centuries the region experienced some of its fastest economic growth, propelled by the policies of state-led developmentalism. As a result of this density and these policies, the four countries in turn became some of the most environmentally degraded. As each achieved middle-to-high income status, however, the populace and then the regime in each country realized that they could not sustain either rapid economic growth or popular legitimacy without addressing the environmental consequences of this fast growth. The four states thus changed their fundamental economic policies from pure developmentalism to what we call eco-developmentalism, an attempt to reconcile economic prosperity with environmental sustainability. Although success so far has been mixed, this turn to eco-developmentalism has allowed these states to claim world leadership in mitigating environmental degradation.

Japan is shrinking. Current projections indicate a population decrease of around one quarter by mid-century. Depopulation is potentially good news, providing opportunities for reconfiguring living conditions and alleviating human-environmental pressures. Nevertheless, ageing and depopulation have outcomes that require adjustment. One of these is spatial inequalities, which have been accelerating since the 1990s. Japan is the Asia-Pacific’s pioneer ageing and shrinking society. In East Asia both China and South Korea are ageing and expected to begin shrinking soon. Even high immigration Anglophone countries such as New Zealand are experiencing post-growth demographic processes at subnational level. Japan’s significance is in how adaptive responses there inform prospects for others as they experience their own post-growth pathways. This article presents case studies of Sado Island in Japan and New Zealand’s South Island in a comparative qualitative analysis of rural agency under population decline. Overall, I contend there is potential for benefitting from demographic shrinkage - what I term a ‘depopulation dividend’ - and for rural regions in the Asia-Pacific to progress towards a sustainable post-growth economy and society.

Braidotti describes the world as gasping for air as collectively we face a range of socioecological challenges. Young people are important actors in these challenges, making schools a critical space for this work. Physical education (PE) can contribute through promoting relevant embodied encounters that develop students’ physical literacies (PL). Noting the recent moves to extend the notion of a physically literate individual to include the ecological, alongside the Australian Curriculum that requires teachers to attend to their learning area, cross-curriculum priorities and general capabilities including sustainability and ethical capabilities, there are exciting possibilities for developing students’ PL to confront these challenges. Despite these opportunities, for PE to contribute meaningfully, teachers must progress from PE represented by sport techniques, linear pedagogies and driven by competition to PE that engages students to think and act differently in the world, ethically, ontologically and epistemologically. Using autoethnography, this paper presents vignettes to outline current issues and possibilities for PE. Through a posthuman lens, positioning teachers and students as learners who are always becoming, with the capacity to affect and be affected, it is possible to achieve the intended curriculum and develop young people’s capacities to make a meaningful contribution to the socioecological challenges we face.