A systematic review was conducted by a multidisciplinary team to analyze qualitatively best available scientific evidence on the effect of agricultural intensification and environmental changes on the risk of zoonoses for which there are epidemiological interactions between wildlife and livestock. The study found several examples in which agricultural intensification and/or environmental change were associated with an increased risk of zoonotic disease emergence, driven by the impact of an expanding human population and changing human behavior on the environment. We conclude that the rate of future zoonotic disease emergence or reemergence will be closely linked to the evolution of the agriculture-environment nexus. However, available research inadequately addresses the complexity and interrelatedness of environmental, biological, economic, and social dimensions of zoonotic pathogen emergence, which significantly limits our ability to predict, prevent, and respond to zoonotic disease emergence.health | epidemiology | ecosystem | ecology

Farmers in mixed crop-livestock systems produce about half of the world's food. In small holdings around the world, livestock are reared mostly on grass, browse, and nonfood biomass from maize, millet, rice, and sorghum crops and in their turn supply manure and traction for future crops. Animals act as insurance against hard times and supply farmers with a source of regular income from sales of milk, eggs, and other products. Thus, faced with population growth and climate change, small-holder farmers should be the first target for policies to intensify production by carefully managed inputs of fertilizer, water, and feed to minimize waste and environmental impact, supported by improved access to markets, new varieties, and technologies.

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Most data and evidence on the economic burden of brucellosis and the benefi ts of its control are from high-income and middle-income countries. However, the burden of brucellosis is greatest in low-income countries. This paper focuses on estimating the economic burdens of brucellosis in low-income countries in tropical Asia and Africa. The prospects for national, technically feasible, and economically viable, national brucellosis control programmes in most lowincome countries are limited. However, some targeted control programmes will be benefi cial and can probably be feasibly managed and provide good economic returns. More ambitious control will require a more general strengthening of Veterinary Services and livestock-sector capacity, using risk-management-based approaches.

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Theory predicts that staying in a refuge has bene¢ts in terms of predator avoidance and costs in terms of lost feeding opportunities. In this study, we investigated how the relative importance of these costs and bene¢ts changes with increasing body length. This is of particular interest in animals such as ¢sh, which show continuous growth throughout their lives. Our results suggest that larger ¢sh are subject to lower predation risks and are less a¡ected by food deprivation than small ¢sh, with ¢sh decreasing their responses to food-deprivation treatments more strongly with increasing body length than to predation treatments. This may explain our observation that large ¢sh emerged later from a refuge than small ones and spent shorter times outside the refuge. The key role of di¡erential responses to food deprivation was further illustrated by the ¢nding that the relative weight loss of individual ¢sh was strongly correlated with a reduction in hiding time even in the absence of body length di¡erences. The importance of inter-individual di¡erences in metabolic rates for the decision-making behaviour of animals is discussed.

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