Human ecology: Bergmann, Allen, climate, pollution

Adaptation is genetic and long. Acclimatization is fast and reversible. Behaviour and technology sit beside both.

• Earlier cultural ecology (Rappaport, Vayda) often left physiology out. Ecological anthropology treats the population as inside the ecosystem.
• Bergmann: cold → stockier bodies. Allen: cold → shorter extremities. Arctic fat insulation vs non-Arctic bodies is the classroom pair.
• Epigenetics (methylation, histones) links diet, stress, climate, lifestyle to gene expression without rewriting DNA sequence.

1. Heat: vasodilation, sweat; electrolyte loss; body composition changes the load.
2. Cold: clothing, work-hour cuts, polar seasonal activity.
3. High altitude: hypoxia; Andean coca as a cultural buffer.
4. Pollution: PM2.5, water metals — physiology plus policy (Delhi-NCR teaching peg).
5. Aridity and UV: melanin, thickening, DNA repair.
6. Pathogens: fever, antibodies; sickle-cell versus malaria as genetic defence with a cost.