Shrinking rabbit population poses threat for carnivore species
Thursday, July 7, 2011 - 12:30
in Biology & Nature
The survival of many carnivore species, including the Iberian lynx and fox, is contingent on them getting their key prey: the rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus). But a Spanish-Argentinean team of researchers has investigated how the collapse of the rabbit population in the late 1980s, triggered by viral haemorrhagic disease (VHD), has adversely impacted the lives of certain carnivores in Doñana National Park, a national park and wildlife refuge in south-western Spain. The findings, published in the journal Basic and Applied Ecology, indicate that the population decline for the most part has affected the lynx; this medium-sized wildcat cannot hunt other prey.