The Population Trajectories Both of the Wild Rabbit (Oryctolagus Cuniculus) and the Iberian Lynx (Lynx Pardinus) in Spain: Implications for Conservation

摘要

The Wild rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) and the Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) are endemic species of the Iberian Peninsula. The Iberian lynx is a specialist predator, listed as critically endangered, and rabbit represents the bulk of its diet as well as of many other Iberian predators. The decline of this emblematic predator has been recurrently explained by means of rabbit decline in Spain. A recent study has shown that wild rabbit populations have declined a 55% in three decades in the country. Habitat destruction and fragmentation by infrastructures, the abandonment of marginal crops, the intensification of farmland ecosystems, and the direct and continuous persecution by farmers to preserve their crops, have been claimed as the main factors thataccount for this dramatic decline. In parallel, the impact of both myxoma virus and rabbit haemorrhagic disease (RHD) implied a relevant increase in rabbit mortality rates, while the species coped with a strong hunting pressure and an increase of competition with other wild herbivores. Nowadays, all these threats have not disappeared yet and conservation efforts have been very scarce. However, previous to rabbit decline, the area of distribution of the Iberian lynx had already suffered a reduction higher than 50%. This fact suggests that the extinction forces operating on Iberian lynx populations were other than rabbit population decline. The most probable hypothesis is that the main factors that accounted for this reduction were the direct persecutionof the species and the massive non-selective predator control. Indeed, rabbit is abundant enough to maintain stable populations of Iberian lynx in many places, but the authorized predator control is usual and intensive preventing lynx establishment. Infact, Iberian lynx populations are now located in areas where predator control is not applied and rabbits are really scarce'.The Conservation National Plan for the Iberian Lynx has focused on introducing rabbits in these marginal areas favoring the increase of Iberian lynx productivity. Its time