Explore the vast range of titles available.

As late as 1900, most whites regarded the tropics as \"the white man's grave,\" a realm of steamy fertility, moral dissolution, and disease. So how did the tropical beach resort-white sand, blue waters, and towering palms-become the iconic vacation landscape?Tropical Whitesexplores the dramatic shift in attitudes toward and popularization of the tropical tourist \"Southland\" in the Americas: Florida, Southern California, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Catherine Cocks examines the history and development of tropical tourism from the late nineteenth century through the early 1940s, when the tropics constituted ideal winter resorts for vacationers from the temperate zones. Combining history, geography, and anthropology, this provocative book explains not only the transformation of widely held ideas about the relationship between the environment and human bodies but also how this shift in thinking underscored emerging concepts of modern identity and popular attitudes toward race, sexuality, nature, and their interconnections. Cocks argues that tourism, far from simply perverting pristine local cultures and selling superficial misunderstandings of them, served as one of the central means of popularizing the anthropological understanding of culture, new at the time. Together with the rise of germ theory, the emergence of the tropical horticulture industry, changes in passport laws, travel writing, and the circulation of promotional materials, national governments and the tourist industry changed public perception of the tropics from a region of decay and degradation, filled with dangerous health risks, to one where the modern traveler could encounter exotic cultures and a rejuvenating environment.

With its control of sugar plantations in the Caribbean and tea, cotton, and indigo production in India, Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries dominated the global economy of tropical agriculture. InColonizing Nature, Beth Fowkes Tobin shows how dominion over \"the tropics\" as both a region and an idea became central to the way in which Britons imagined their role in the world. Tobin examines georgic poetry, landscape portraiture, natural history writing, and botanical prints produced by Britons in the Caribbean, the South Pacific, and India to uncover how each played a crucial role in developing the belief that the tropics were simultaneously paradisiacal and in need of British intervention and management. Her study examines how slave garden portraits denied the horticultural expertise of the slaves, how the East India Company hired such artists as William Hodges to paint and thereby Anglicize the landscape and gardens of British-controlled India, and how writers from Captain James Cook to Sir James E. Smith depicted tropical lands and plants. Just as mastery of tropical nature, and especially its potential for agricultural productivity, became key concepts in the formation of British imperial identity,Colonizing Naturesuggests that intellectual and visual mastery of the tropics-through the creation of art and literature-accompanied material appropriations of land, labor, and natural resources. Tobin convincingly argues that the depictions of tropical plants, gardens, and landscapes that circulated in the British imagination provide a key to understanding the forces that shaped the British Empire.

The author goes on to explore a startling shift at midcentury in the perception of the tropical forest--from the \"jungle,\" a place that endangers human life, to the \"rain forest,\" a place that is itself endangered.

Understanding hydroclimatic patterns and their possible driving mechanisms during distinct climate periods over the last 1500 years—such as the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), the Little Ice Age (LIA), and the Current Warm Period—is crucial for predicting future changes to monsoon precipitation in southwest China under global warming scenarios. In this study, based on 210 Pb and 137 Cs dating of surface sediments and AMS 14 C dating of terrestrial plant residues, we establish a robust age model that covers the last ∼1500 years (AD 439–2012) at Lake Yihai in southwest China. We use analyses of multiple geochemical proxy indices, including loss on ignition at 550°C, total organic carbon, total nitrogen, C/N ratios, and stable carbon isotopes of organic matter to reconstruct changes in summer monsoon precipitation at Lake Yihai during the last ∼1500 years. The results show that, over southwest China, warm and dry climate conditions prevailed during the MWP (AD 1000–1400) and the past 200 years, whereas conditions during the LIA (AD 1400–1800) were cold and wet. This is consistent with evidence from other geological records over southwest China, such as stalagmite and lake sediment data. Similar hydroclimatic patterns have occurred over the last 1500 years in adjacent tropical/subtropical monsoon regions where the climate is similarly dominated by the Indian summer monsoon (e.g., South China, the South China Sea, Southeast Asia, Northeast India). We suggest that the meridional migration of the mean position of the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone, and El Niño/Southern Oscillation conditions which are linked to tropical Pacific sea surface temperature, are responsible for centennial-scale hydroclimatic patterns over southwest China and adjacent areas during the last 1500 years.

To characterize influenza seasonality and identify the best time of the year for vaccination against influenza in tropical and subtropical countries of southern and south-eastern Asia that lie north of the equator. Weekly influenza surveillance data for 2006 to 2011 were obtained from Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam. Weekly rates of influenza activity were based on the percentage of all nasopharyngeal samples collected during the year that tested positive for influenza virus or viral nucleic acid on any given week. Monthly positivity rates were then calculated to define annual peaks of influenza activity in each country and across countries. Influenza activity peaked between June/July and October in seven countries, three of which showed a second peak in December to February. Countries closer to the equator had year-round circulation without discrete peaks. Viral types and subtypes varied from year to year but not across countries in a given year. The cumulative proportion of specimens that tested positive from June to November was > 60% in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam. Thus, these tropical and subtropical countries exhibited earlier influenza activity peaks than temperate climate countries north of the equator. Most southern and south-eastern Asian countries lying north of the equator should consider vaccinating against influenza from April to June; countries near the equator without a distinct peak in influenza activity can base vaccination timing on local factors.

The New World tropical forest is now considered to be an early and independent cradle of agriculture. As in other areas of the world, our understanding of this issue has been significantly advanced by a steady stream of archaeobotanical, paleoecological, and molecular/genetic data. Also importantly, a renewed focus on formulating testable theories and explanations for the transition from foraging to food production has led to applications from subdisciplines of ecology, economy, and evolution not previously applied to agricultural origins. Most recently, the integration of formerly separated disciplines, such as developmental and evolutionary biology, is causing reconsiderations of how novel phenotypes, including domesticated species, originate and the influence of artificial selection on the domestication process. It is becoming clear that the more interesting question may be the origins of plant cultivation rather than the origins of agriculture. This paper reviews this body of evidence and assesses current views about how and why domestication and plant food production arose.

Monthly means, seasonal variances, and trends of a global climatology boundary layer height (BLH) over West Africa are presented based on 36 years (1979 - 2014) of six-hourly ERA-Interim reanalysis. In this region, we found that there is a link between the West Africa Monsoon (WAM) and the monthly means of BLH where largest values of BLH variances are developed in the tropics close to the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). High temperatures and sufficient moisture are also available close this area. Seasonal trend magnitudes vary from -20 to 20 m per decade during the period 1979 - 2014 and characterize by negative trend over east of the Sahara region. Trends are only included in the analysis, if their probability exceeds the 95% significance level. Case study of diurnal variation was done during the African monsoon multidisciplinary analyses Special Observing Period 3 (AMMA SOP3) experiment (August 2006). We found that the lower boundary-layer appears around 875 hPa in the monsoon layer where the wind decreases at midday in interaction through exchange processes with air originating from above the boundary layer. In the same time, the dust in Saharan Air Layer (SAL) seems to modify the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) thermodynamic attributes by altering the shortwave and longwave radiative budget.

Early researchers of radiocarbon levels in Southern Hemisphere tree rings identified a variable North-South hemispheric offset, necessitating construction of a separate radiocarbon calibration curve for the South. We present here SHCal20, a revised calibration curve from 0–55,000 cal BP, based upon SHCal13 and fortified by the addition of 14 new tree-ring data sets in the 2140–0, 3520–3453, 3608–3590 and 13,140–11,375 cal BP time intervals. We detail the statistical approaches used for curve construction and present recommendations for the use of the Northern Hemisphere curve (IntCal20), the Southern Hemisphere curve (SHCal20) and suggest where application of an equal mixture of the curves might be more appropriate. Using our Bayesian spline with errors-in-variables methodology, and based upon a comparison of Southern Hemisphere tree-ring data compared with contemporaneous Northern Hemisphere data, we estimate the mean Southern Hemisphere offset to be 36 ± 27 14C yrs older.

ABSTRACT The present study focuses on the variation in soil properties and microbial biomass carbon along an elevation gradient in the Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary, Arunachal Pradesh. Soil was acidic in nature and pH value ranges from 4.37 ± 0.14 to 5.25 ± 0.29. Soil texture varied from sandy to loamy sand. Clay content and available potassium showed a significant negative correlation (p < 0.05) with altitude. Water holding capacity and available nitrogen showed a strongly significant positive correlation (p < 0.01). Soil bulk density, temperature, moisture content, pH, available phosphorus and microbial biomass carbon showed a strongly significant negative correlation (p < 0.01) with altitude. Soil organic carbon stock was highest (66.39 ± 9.36 t h−1) in tropical zone and lowest (44.33 ± 6.34 t h−1) in temperate zone. Higher soil organic carbon and organic matter (4.16 ± 0.58% and 7.17 ± 1.00%) were found in subtropical zone while lowest (2.57 ± 0.38% and 4.42 ± 0.64%) were found in tropical zone. Available nitrogen and available potassium were highest (604.10 ± 24.13 kg h−1 and 418.14 ± 26.53 kg h−1) in subtropical zone and lowest available potassium (282.82 kg h−1 ± 14.68 kg h−1) was recorded in the temperate zone. Higher available phosphorous (62.51 ± 6.96 kg h−1) was recorded in tropical zone while lowest (10.66 ± 1.49 kg h−1) was recorded in the subtropical zone. The first four main components of the principal component analysis jointly explained 78.51% of the overall variation. The results from the principal component analysis align closely with Pearson’s correlation analysis and analysis of variance, reinforcing the accuracy and reliability of the observed trends in data. The present study clearly indicates that altitudinal variation exerts a significant effect on the soil’s physico-chemical properties. It suggests that understanding the effects of altitudinal variation on soil properties is important for the establishment and restoration of the vegetation in diverse altitudinal zone.

The present study summarizes the existing chronometric data of fossil dunes preserved in the southern Thar Desert margin (STM). The objective is to understand the episodes of dune accretion and causes of their spatial and temporal variability along the precipitation gradient. Based on the published ages, the study identifies three major phases of dune accretion. The oldest phase-I is dated between ~25 and 17 ka (MIS-2); the second short-lived phase-II between ~15 and 12 ka, whereas the phase-III occurred between 10 and 5 ka. The second phase terminates with the deposition of fluvially reworked aeolian sand which has the presence of microlithic artifacts and corresponds to the early Holocene strengthened Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM). The study suggests that during phase-I and II, the terrain witnessed a significant reduction in the ISM for which a more southerly position of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) is implicated. During phase-III, an oscillating ISM with overall declining trend is attributed to mid-late Holocene minor fluctuations in the ITCZ (probably proximal to modern summer position). A conspicuous absence of dune building in the northern Thar Desert during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) is ascribed to the prevalence of hyper-arid conditions in comparison to the relatively moist conditions in the STM due to its proximity to the Arabian Sea. After ~15 ka, both the STM and the Thar Desert show a broad synchroneity and that coincides with the gradual strengthening of the ISM.