Abstract
Permanent semi-natural grassland meadows (lameiros) are characteristic of the mountain rural landscapes in northeast Portugal and represent the main fodder resource for livestock production. Furthermore, these meadows are recognized for their environmental, historical, cultural and visual landscape value. A monitoring study based on remote-sensing data was implemented to understand the impacts of management practices on the lameiros vegetation dynamics and to analyse changes in vegetation dynamics over the period 1998-2008 in response to inter-annual climatic variability. Ten-day SPOT-VEGETATION (VGT) image composites from this period were used to examine the annual temporal profile using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and their relationship with ground-based observation of vegetation growth and reflectance inferred with a spectroradiometer. Results show that the NDVI profile fits well the characteristic vegetation growth dynamics and associated management practices in the region. For the period from July 2007 to December 2008, the variation in vegetation height explains 46 to 52% of the variation in NDVI derived respectively from spectroradiometer and VGT data. NDVI referring to dates of specific stages of the vegetation dynamics and management practices in lameiros was tested against climatic variables, for the period 1998-2008. More than 57% of the inter-annual variability of the average NDVI during the lameiros development period can be explained by the mean temperature, and 53% of the variability on the date of occurrence of maximum vegetation development (MVD) can be explained by the mean temperature during the spring period. These results support the analysis of lameiros responses to different scenarios of climate and water management and may support the implementation of more efficient farm activities.

Abstract

Abstract
The application of organic wastes to agricultural soils may have adverse effects on soil quality. Different end-points are proposed to be analysed and included in organic waste management programmes. The aim of this laboratory study was to determine how the application of increasing concentrations of broiler chicken litter, dairy sludge and cattle slurry can affect survival, body mass change and metal accumulation in Eisenia fetida (Savigny, 1826). Generally, no mortality occurred for the different organic wastes concentrations at the end of the study. In addition, significant increases of body mass were observed on earthworms exposed to the highest concentrations of the organic wastes. Organic wastes increased concentration of some metals in soil (mainly, Cu and Zn in broiler litter and dairy sludge mixtures) and in E. fetida tissue (mainly, Cu in earthworms from broiler litter containers), although metal contents in soil-waste mixtures were always below legal limits. The negligible toxic effect of organic wastes on earthworms was due to the low heavy metal levels of those organic wastes and due to some nutritional or habitat advantages promoted by them. Results obtained demonstrated that body mass change was the most sensitive end-point and, therefore, should be integrated on a battery of ecotoxicological assays to evaluate the ecotoxicity of this type of organic wastes.

Abstract
A forecast model for estimating the annual variation in regional olive crop yield has been developed during the years 1998 to 2006 for the Alentejo region (south Portugal). This model was estimated hierarchically along three different in-season stages: i) flowering, considering only the regional airborne pollen index; ii) fruit growth with the addition of a plant water-stress index; iii) fruit maturing with the addition of a phytopathological index. Appropriated statistical tests indicated that the regional airborne pollen index accounted for 64% of the inter-annual olive yield variability with an average deviation between observed and predicted production of 16%. The addition of the variable plant water-stress index to the forecasting model allowed an increase in its accuracy of 27% while the phytopathological index allowed an increase of 6%. The final bioclimatic model, with all the three variables tested, explained 97% of the regional olive fruit yield being the average deviation between observed and predicted production of 4% for the internal validation of the model and of 9% for the external validation. The hierarchical structure of this bioclimatic model, along three different development stages, enabled an update along the growing season.

Abstract
Pollen morphology and quality of 20 olive cultivars grown in Portugal were analysed and multivariate statistical analysis was performed in order to group the cultivars with similar characteristics. The morphology was analysed by scanning electron microscopy and the quality was evaluated through pollen viability and in vitro germination. Pollen grains from the studied cultivars were elliptical, subprolate or prolate spheroidal with an average size (22x20 mu m), 3- zonocolpate for the majority of cultivars but 3-zonocolporate for three of the cultivars studied. Pollen viability varied between 76% ('Verdeal de Tras-os- Montes') to 6% ('Madural') and the germination varied between 65% ('Verdeal de Tras-os-Montes') and 2% ('Conserva de Elvas'). Hierarchical cluster analysis based on all characteristics analysed, showed an organization into three groups composed by cultivars with similar pollen morphometry characteristics and percentages of pollen viability and in vitro germination. Our results indicate that the highest values of olive pollen viability and germination are associated with highest average values of pollen exine reticulum thickness and diameter.

Abstract
PhenoSat is an experimental software tool that extracts phenological information from satellite vegetation index time-series. Temporal satellite NDVI data provided by VEGETATION sensor from three different vegetation types (Vineyard, Closed Deciduous Forest and Deciduous Shrubland with Sparse Trees) and for different geographical locations were used to test the ability of the software in extracting vegetation dynamics information. Six noise reduction filters were tested: piecewise-logistic, Savitzky-Golay, cubic smoothing splines, Gaussian models, Fourier series and polynomial curve fitting. The results showed that PhenoSat is an useful tool to extract phenological NDVI metrics, providing similar results to those obtained from field measurements. The best results presented correlations of 0.89 (n=6; p<0.01) and 0.71 (n=6; p<0.06) for the green-up and maximum stages, respectively. In the fitting process, the polynomial and Gaussian algorithms over smoothed the peak related with a double-growth season, the opposite to the other methods that could detect more accurately this peak.