Surveillance is the first line of defence against disease, whether to monitor endemic cycles or to detect emergent epidemics. Knowledge of disease in wildlife is of considerable importance for managing risks to humans, livestock and wildlife species. Recent public health concerns (e.g. Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, West Nile Virus, Ebola) have increased interest in wildlife disease surveillance. However, current practice is based on protocols developed for livestock systems that do not account for the potentially large fluctuations in host population density and disease prevalence seen in wildlife. A generic stochastic modelling framework was developed where surveillance of wildlife disease systems are characterised in terms of key demographic, epidemiological and surveillance parameters. Discrete and continuous state-space representations respectively, are simulated using the Gillespie algorithm and numerical solution of stochastic differential equations. Mathematical analysis and these simulation tools are deployed to show that demographic fluctuations and stochasticity in transmission dynamics can reduce disease detection probabilities and lead to bias and reduced precision in the estimates of prevalence obtained from wildlife disease surveillance. This suggests that surveillance designs based on current practice may lead to underpowered studies and provide poor characterisations of the risks posed by disease in wildlife populations. By parameterising the framework for specific wildlife host species these generic conclusions are shown to be relevant to disease systems of current interest. The generic framework was extended to incorporate spatial heterogeneity. The impact of design on the ability of spatially distributed surveillance networks to detect emergent disease at a regional scale was then assessed. Results show dynamic spatial reallocation of a fixed level of surveillance effort led to more rapid detection of disease than static designs. This thesis has shown that spatio-temporal heterogeneities impact on the efficacy of surveillance and should therefore be considered when undertaking surveillance of wildlife disease systems.

Trace amounts of activated pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) have been reported in aquatic environments worldwide, and their toxicity to non-target organisms is of increasing concern. Algae are primary producers in aquatic food chains, and as such are very sensitive to external disturbance. The understanding of the adverse effects on the algal species such as growth and physiological effects is vital to understand the risks of APIs in the aquatic environment. This thesis therefore describes desk-based studies and a series of laboratory experiments to characterise the risk of APIs, and to investigate the effects of APIs on a wide range of algal species. In the desk-study, a review summarising the available ecotoxicological data of APIs to algal species was initially performed, where differences in the sensitivity of the algal species towards API exposures were found. After that, an approach for prioritising APIs and associated metabolites in the UK environment was developed, where three major-use antibiotics lincomycin, tylosin and trimethoprim that pose a potential threat to algal species in the natural environment were identified for further experimental investigation. Laboratory experiments were then conducted to investigate the effects of three antibiotics on the growth and physiology of a range of algal species from chlorophytes, cyanobacteria and diatoms. Risk arising from the antibiotic mixture in the European surface waters was characterised In conclusion three major-use antibiotics could cause inhibitory effects on both algal growth and physiology. At environmentally relevant concentrations the antibiotic mixtures can pose potential risks in European surface waters.

Recently, several scientific committees of the European Commission have identified research needs to enhance the risk assessment of plant protection products (PPPs). This PhD explicitly focuses on contributing to the research needs of assessing effects under highly time-variable exposure, increasing the ecological realism in effect assessment approaches, considering effect assessment of combined stressors (natural and anthropogenic) and improving ecological modelling. The presented work focuses on the observation of potential impacts of PPPs (imidacloprid and carbaryl) on feeding of aquatic invertebrates (Gammarus pulex and Daphnia magna) under more environmentally-realistic exposures. Isolated feeding depression and its combination with additional stress is explored. Investigations include the determination of consequences of alterations in feeding for further behavioural traits of individuals and its transposition to the population level. An ecological model is used as a virtual laboratory to allow the interpretation of complex impacts observed which in turn helps to evaluate the model used. A key finding is that feeding assays with G. pulex are able to reveal impacts of PPPs at environmentally-relevant concentrations and that the measurement of recovery potential is important. However, the method used requires further improvement in order to extrapolate impacts to the population and ecosystem level. The possibility of short-term impacts on feeding causing severe impacts at the individual and population level is shown for D. magna. Direct extrapolation from the feeding assay with imidacloprid to other individual traits is not possible. Impacts are found to depend on food availability and the individual’s reproductive strategy, which is found to be more flexible under multiple stresses than has been reported in the literature. Further research is required in order to generalise these findings.

Environmental education is a diverse field, carried out by many different types of organisations and individuals in a variety of formal and non-formal settings. In this era of accountability environmental educators are increasingly being asked to demonstrate the success of their projects through evaluation. In this thesis, I explore evaluation practice within environmental education in the UK from the perspectives of practitioners and their participants. I used a mixed-methods approach to discover what practitioners and participants feel are the outcomes of environmental education, comparing them with each other and the limited literature on the topic. Practitioners suggested a wide range of different outcomes, which I categorised into outcomes for the environment, for the individual, the wider community and the institution running the project. A particularly diverse range of outcomes for the individual were suggested by practitioners and their participants. Few studies have examined the evaluation practice of environmental education practitioners, but the literature suggests a lack of a culture of evaluation within the sector. Practitioners in my sample report evaluating their projects more frequently than is reported in the literature. However, I used the Kirkpatrick typology of evaluation to categorise the types of evaluation conducted by these practitioners and revealed that much of this is mainly a fairly superficial assessment of how much participants enjoyed the activities. The barriers practitioners face to evaluation is another understudied research area, and I divided the barriers discussed by practitioners and participants into methodological and practical barriers. Lack of time is the biggest challenge faced by practitioners, and this has implications for the quality of the evaluations that are conducted.

Nanotechnology is a rapidly growing industry of global economic importance. However, there is concern that the unique properties of engineered nanoparticles (ENPs) which can make them useful to society could mean that they pose a risk to the natural environment. There are still many uncertainties around the behaviour of ENPs in aquatic systems, their capacity to be taken up by aquatic organisms, and their potential toxic effects. This study therefore used four different surface functionalised gold (Au) nanoparticles as exemplars and explored their behaviour in various aquatic systems and their uptake into aquatic organisms. Studies into the behaviour of the study ENPs in standardized ecotoxicity test media showed that the particles exhibit very different aggregation behaviour depending on the test media type, the chemical composition of the test media and surface capping of the nanoparticles. Based on the results of the aggregation studies in a range of natural waters, a series of methods to predict size of Au particles in different water chemistries were developed. Results showed that there would likely be big differences in the aggregation of the different Au nanoparticle types in UK water types which implies that aggregation of ENPs will vary widely across surface waters. The uptake of the four Au nanoparticles into the aquatic invertebrate, Gammarous pulex, did not show obvious relationship between the aggregation state in a treatment and uptake suggesting that the widely accepted assumption that ENP uptake is related to particle size does not hold for the range of aggregation states studied. The results of this thesis showed that the degree of aggregation of ENPs and uptake into aquatic organisms would vary depending on the surface functionalisation of the ENPs and water chemistry. The results imply that aggregation of ENPs will vary widely across surface waters which make assessment of risks a challenge. Additionally, the uptake data indicate that factors other than particle size determine uptake of ENPs into organisms. Therefore, it may be necessary to develop new paradigms and models for risk assessment of ENPs.

Pests can impact significantly upon the economy, the environment and on human and animal health. However, for pest birds there are surprisingly few studies of these impacts and how to reduce them. The aim of this thesis is to advance our understanding of the ecology, impacts, and management of pest birds using case studies for each of the three main impacts. In considering economic impacts I estimate pest bird abundance, describe a novel method for measuring bird damage, and evaluate the efficacy of lethal and non-lethal methods in vineyards and orchards. Using data across 185 property years, netting was found to be the most effective in reducing bird damage. Shooting was not as effective but was one-third of the cost and had 13% lower damage compared with nil-treatments. Scaring with electronic devices and visual deterrents had no effect on bird damage. Despite their widespread use, lethal methods had limited effectiveness for reducing pest abundance. In considering environmental impacts introduced mallards on Lord Howe Island were used as a case study. Phenotypic characteristics suggest that mallards have supplanted the native Pacific black duck on Lord Howe Island. Management alternatives are evaluated and discussed. In considering health-related impacts wild birds and avian influenza in Australia was used as a case study. Here, the ecology of Australia’s Anseriformes, and the epidemiology, modes of transmission, and the factors influencing the prevalence of avian influenza in Australia’s wild birds are investigated. Risk profiles to improve the efficiency and relevance of wild-bird surveillance are also provided. The case studies presented demonstrate that an understanding of a pest’s ecology, efficient measures of impacts, and thorough evaluations of surveillance and management strategies are essential for effectively managing their economic, environmental and health-related impacts.

Despite decades of varied conservation and management interventions, tropical forests remain one of the world’s most threatened biomes. Tropical forests directly support the livelihoods of millions of people in poverty through the provision of food and fuel, while also delivering vital ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration and watershed protection. Approaches to conserve and manage tropical forests have evolved in recent decades, reflecting an increasing appreciation for the multiple ecological, social and economic services they provide. However, growing appreciation for the multiple benefits of forests has arguably not been met with their growing realisation in practice. Indeed, it is becoming apparent that trade-offs in forest conservation and management are common, whereas ‘win-win’ outcomes for both development and conservation are rare. Despite this, emerging policies aimed at reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+) have harnessed international attention, given theoretical benefits not just for climate change mitigation, but biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation. For REDD+ to succeed where other policies arguably have failed, critical examination of existing tropical forest conservation and management policies is necessary to provide implementation recommendations. In this thesis I critically review the history of interventions to conserve and manage tropical forests (Chapter 2), and highlight three repeated failures in implementation that are common to all examined policies: low appreciation by management for the heterogeneity of target communities and dependence on forest resources; low levels of community inclusion and participation in management; and a continued deficit in clearly defined social and economic indicators of intervention success. To address these concerns I suggest examination of policy implementation at the local level is needed, with focus on what works where, for whom, and why, rather than what the ‘silver bullet’ for tropical forest conservation and management might be. Using a case-study approach in Tanzania, I examine the implementation of different management regimes, including strict protection and Participatory Forest Management (PFM), from the local socio-economic perspective. In the first empirical chapter (Chapter 3), I measure household awareness of the different forest management regimes in the study area using household questionnaire surveys. Results show that awareness of forest management and rules and regulations was clear, however confusion in the type of regime in place was apparent. Overall, awareness for top-down management structures was high, yet few households were engaged in rule formation of the PFM forests and none were aware of joint-management status. Findings indicate that forest management implementation must consider heterogeneity in villager awareness for management regimes, yet logistic regression models show this heterogeneity cannot necessarily be defined in a predictable way based on household socio-economic characteristics. Management implementation that focuses on transparent, uniform and consistent communication of information across whole forest- adjacent communities is therefore more likely to succeed. In the second empirical chapter (Chapter 4), I quantify household forest product use in the study area to examine the impact of forest access restrictions on household ability to meet firewood needs. Household perceived need for firewood was compared with quantity consumed to provide an indication of household firewood sufficiency. Results indicate management effectiveness is reflected by this measure of firewood sufficiency. Harvest from non-forest areas was found to significantly reduce firewood sufficiency, presenting concerns for household welfare and/or leakage of harvesting activities to other less-well protected forests in the area given a recent ban on firewood collection in a nearby National Park. Results of this chapter support suggestions that forest management adopt a landscape approach in planning, to account for local resource needs and avoid the negative impacts of leakage and detriment to local welfare. Finally, in Chapter 5 I use a qualitative approach to examine local perceptions of the challenges for forest protection, and compare these across stakeholder groups from the villager to management level. Issues that permeate the discourses are categorised into three themes: education, governance and forest dependency. The importance of each issue was found to vary by stakeholder group, identifying a disconnect and division in accountability for forest protection between villagers and management officials. Results suggest more novel approaches for social engagement and community inclusion in forest management are necessary. I suggest that facilitation of villager empowerment is needed for village institutions to be effectively accountable for forest protection, thereby aiding long term management success. Overall, the thesis shows that forest conservation and management interventions need to account for the perspectives and needs of local forest-adjacent communities. In Chapter 6, results are discussed in light of the three repeated failings of tropical forest conservation and management interventions, as outlined in Chapter 2. Results confirm these failings in implementation exist in the study area. As such, I suggest that the local socio-economic measures used in this thesis can be used in future evaluations of global tropical forest policy. Results also present important implications for emerging REDD+ policies, as limits to achieving the multiple benefits of climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation, and poverty alleviation are identified.

The increasing interest in use of nanotechnology by the food industry brought concerns over safety of engineered nanoparticle application in the foods and food contact materials. To aid the risk assessment in 2010 a project NanoLyse was funded by the European Union under Framework Programme 7. The project was focused on the development and validation of methods for analysing engineered nanoparticles in food matrices. The research presented in this thesis was a part of NanoLyse and was concerned with electron microscopy methods. The aim of this research was optimization of sample preparation procedures and validation of electron microscopy as an analytical technique for engineered nanoparticle measurement in foods. Thus the comparison of different sample preparation techniques was carried out for engineered nanoparticles in food matrices. Best procedures were chosen: blotting for liquid and sedimentation of the sample onto electron microscopy grid for solid food samples. These sample preparation techniques were then included in validation of electron microscopy. In view of unavailability of the reference materials electron microscopy results were compared against other analytical methods selected based on the literature review. These techniques were: nanoparticle tracking analysis, gas-phase electrophoretic mobility molecular analyser, centrifugal liquid sedimentation and asymmetric flow field flow fractionation. To render the comparison possible also for studied aggregated, non-spherical particles of synthetic amorphous silica, the concept of data transformation into mass equivalent diameter was developed. Thanks to this it was possible to note that electron microscopy tended to overestimate small particle number in size distribution due to the sample preparation. Subsequently sample preparation for electron microscopy was calibrated for the measurement of engineered nanoparticles of silica. Lastly remaining challenges and knowledge gaps in regards to the measurement of engineered nanoparticles in food were highlighted and discussed against NanoLyse project achievements.

In September 2008, Lamlash Bay became Scotland’s first and only fully protected marine reserve. Dive surveys conducted over a period of four years revealed the abundance of juvenile scallops to be 2-5 times greater within this marine reserve than outside. Generalised linear models showed that this greater abundance was related to a greater presence of macroalgae and hydroids growing within the boundaries of the reserve. My study also indicated that the age, size and reproductive biomass of adult king scallops were all significantly greater within the reserve. Similarly, potting surveys conducted over a two year period showed European lobsters were significantly larger and more fecund within the reserve than on neighbouring fishing grounds. However, differences between the reserve and outside were less clear after I explored benthic and fish communities within and around Lamlash Bay. Live maerl, macroalgae, sponges, hydroids, eyelash worms, feather stars, parchment worms and total epifauna were all significantly more abundant within the reserve than on neighbouring fishing grounds. In contrast, comparisons of the abundance of mobile benthic fauna and fish revealed no difference between the reserve and outside. This was likely due to the young age of the reserve (5 years) and its small size (2.67km2), both of which are known to reduce the effects of marine reserves on mobile species. Overall, my results are consistent with the hypothesis that marine reserves can promote the density, size and age structure of commercially exploited species to return to more natural levels. My results also support that closed areas can encourage the recovery of sea floor habitats, which can increase the recruitment of scallops, cod and other commercially valuable species.

The aim of the present study was to assess the effects of four herbicides commonly used in Thailand (atrazine, 2,4-D, alachlor, paraquat)on the aquatic plant Lemna minor under differing patterns of exposure (single-, mixture-, and sequential- exposure). The endpoint of interest was the growth rate of plants over time. In the single-compound toxicity studies, paraquat was found to be the most toxic pesticide followed by alachlor, atrazine and 2,4-D. Mixture studies were then done on the pesticides to understand how they would interact. Comparison of data from toxicity tests on mixtures of the pesticides with modelling predictions indicated that atrazine and2,4-D interact antagonistically whereas alachlor and paraquat interact synergistically. These results are in agreement with other mixture studies with pesticides. Studies were also done to understand the effects of the different pesticides when applied in sequence. Comparison of the experimental results with predictions from a simple model demonstrated that at low effect concentration herbicides, the model works well but at higher concentrations it falls down. To explore the reasons for this, a further study was done to assess the carry-over toxicity of the study compounds. This work demonstrates approaches to understand the effects of pesticides under more realistic exposure conditions. It demonstrates that while modelling approaches are available for estimating impacts under more realistic exposures, the accuracy of the predictions is likely to be highly dependent on the mode of action and concentration of the pesticide and the duration of the exposure.