The sustainability of livelihoods and food security by small-scale colonists in the Amazon have been associated with the dynamics of land use and land cover as well as the ability of combining distinct sources of income and welfare. However, few studies have discussed theoretically how these changes co-evolve, over distinct stages of frontier development and for the same colonist cohort, with the composition and size of farm households. This paper, based on the revision of the extant literature, proposes a Demo-livelihoods theoretical framework that combines and synthetizes three theoretical approaches — the household and land use life cycle approach, the livelihoods and capabilities approach, and the revisited theory of multiphasic responses. The objective is to provide theoretical groundings for empirical studies that unveil how microdemographics (individual and farm household) cohort dynamics in frontier settings such as the Amazon mediate livelihoods (including land use) strategies over distinct development stages. It shows how demographic factors may be significant to define livelihoods at earlier frontier stages and release explanatory power at later stages, when market integration increases and households increasingly adopt diversified livelihoods. Furthermore, demographic dynamics at each frontier stage may be associated with distinct livelihood strategies, including mobility, land use, and deforestation, and thus define the extent and nature of settler´s welfare and food security.

亚马逊小规模殖民者的生计和粮食安全的可持续性与土地利用和土地覆盖的动态以及结合不同收入来源和福利的能力有关。然而，很少有研究从理论上讨论这些变化如何在边境发展的不同阶段和同一殖民者队列中与农户的构成和规模共同演变。本文在对现有文献进行修正的基础上，提出了一个Demo-livelihoods理论框架它结合并综合了三种理论方法——家庭和土地使用生命周期方法、生计和能力方法，以及重新审视的多相反应理论。目的是为实证研究提供理论基础，揭示亚马逊等前沿环境中的微观人口统计（个人和农户）队列动态如何在不同的发展阶段调解生计（包括土地使用）战略。它显示了当市场一体化增加并且家庭越来越多地采用多元化生计时，人口因素对于在早期前沿阶段定义生计并在后期释放解释力可能具有重要意义。此外，每个前沿阶段的人口动态可能与不同的生计策略相关，包括流动性、