Mixed systems of agriculture incorporating combinations of trees and crops have formed key elements of the landscape of Europe throughout historical times, and many such systems continue to function in the present day. In many cases they represent formerly widespread traditional systems in decline and a number have already become extinct or exist only in a threatened state. The causes are both practical and economic. The agricultural subsidy regime within the European Union is presently unfavourable towards silvoarable practices, which has been a major factor in their recent decline. The silvoarable systems of Europe can be split into two classes according to location -northern Europe and the Mediterranean. The latter contains not only a greater area of silvoarable cultivation, but also a greater diversity of systems due to the broader range of commercial tree and crop species grown. In general, the systems of northern Europe are limited by light, whilst those of the Mediterranean are limited by the availability of water. Mixed systems of agriculture present an opportunity for future European rural development and have the potential to contribute towards the increased sustainability of agriculture and enhancement of biodiversity, whilst preserving landscapes that are both culturally important and aesthetically pleasing. A better understanding of the legacy of traditional silvoarable systems, combined with the formulation of a consistent definition and specific European policy towards them will be invaluable in ensuring that the benefits of mixed agriculture are fully exploited in the future.

A handheld mobile laser scanning (HMLS) approach to forest inventory surveying allows virtual reconstructions of forest stands and extraction of key structural parameters from beneath the canopy, significantly reducing survey time when compared against static laser scan and fieldwork methods. A proof of concept test application demonstrated the ability of this technique to successfully extract diameter at breast height (DBH) and stem position compared against a concurrent terrestrial laser scan (TLS) survey. When stems with DBH > 10 cm are examined, an HMLS to TLS modelling success rate of 91% was achieved with the root mean square error (RMSE) of the DBH and stem position being 1.5 cm and 2.1 cm respectively. The HMLS approach gave a survey coverage time per surveyor of 50 m /min for the field study. This powerful tool has potential applications in forest surveying by providing much larger data sets at reduced operational costs to current survey methods. HMLS provides an efficient, cost effective, versatile forest surveying technique, which can be conducted as easily as walking through a plot, allowing much more detailed, spatially extensive survey data to be collected.

Land-use change, a major constituent of global environmental change, potentially has significant consequences for human health in relation to mosquito-borne diseases. Land-use change can influence mosquito habitat, and therefore the distribution and abundance of vectors, and land use mediates humanmosquito interactions, including biting rate. Based on a conceptual model linking the landscape, people, and mosquitoes, this interdisciplinary study focused on the impacts of changes in land use on dengue and malaria vectors and dengue transmission in northern Thailand. Extensive data on mosquito presence and abundance, land-use change, and infection risk determinants were collected over 3 years. The results of the different components of the study were then integrated through a set of equations linking land use to disease via mosquito abundance. The impacts of a number of plausible scenarios for future land-use changes in the region, and of concomitant behavioral change were assessed. Results indicated that land-use changes have a detectable impact on mosquito populations and on infection. This impact varies according to the local environment but can be counteracted by adoption of preventive measures.

Tree seedlings in tropical rain forests are subject to both damage from natural enemies and intense interspecific competition. This leads to a trade-off in investment between defense and growth, and it is likely that tree species specialized to particular habitats tailor this balance to correspond with local resource availability. It has also been suggested that differential herbivore impacts among tree species may drive habitat segregation, favoring species adapted to particular resource conditions. In order to test these predictions, a reciprocal transplant experiment in Sabah, Malaysia, was established with seedlings of five species of Dipterocarpaceae. These were specialized to either alluvial (Hopea nervosa, Parashorea tomentella) or sandstone soils (Shorea multiflora, H. beccariana), or were locally absent (S. fallax). A total of 3000 seedlings were planted in paired gap and understory plots in five sites on alluvial and sandstone soils. Half of all seedlings were fertilized. Seedling growth and mortality were recorded in regular samples over 3.5 years, and rates of insect herbivore damage were estimated from censuses of foliar tissue loss on marked mature leaves and available young leaves. Greater herbivory rates on mature leaves had no measurable effects on seedling growth but were associated with a significantly increased likelihood of mortality during the following year. In contrast, new-leaf herbivory rates correlated with neither growth nor mortality. There were no indications of differential impacts of herbivory among the five species, nor between experimental treatments. Herbivory was not shown to influence segregation of species between soil types, although it may contribute toward differential survival among light habitats. Natural rates of damage were substantially lower than have been shown to influence tree seedling growth and mortality in previous manipulative studies.