News News

Content with tag oryctolagus cuniculus .

The Iberian hare population increases in Doñana after the decline of the European rabbit

Competition, predation, and diseases are key factors shaping animal communities. In recent decades, lagomorphs in Europe have been impacted by virus-borne diseases that have caused substantial declines in their populations and, subsequently, in many of their predators. We examined activity and habitat-use patterns of sympatric European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) and Iberian hares (Lepus granatensis) in Doñana National Park, during two periods of disease outbreak.

Hair and feathers as monitoring tools of mine pollution

Mining is responsible of releasing trace elements to the environment with potential negative effects on wildlife. Traditionally, wildlife exposure assessment has been developed by analyzing mainly environmental compartments or internal tissues. Nowadays, the use of non-destructive matrices such as hair or feathers has increased. Nevertheless, its use in free-living terrestrial mammals or in birds other than raptors or passerines is less frequent. The main objective of this study was to...

Is restocking a useful tool for increasing rabbit densities?

The European rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus is endemic to Mediterranean ecosystems in the Iberian Peninsula, where it is a key species. In recent years its populations have declined due to several factors including habitat transformation and viral diseases. At the same time, corrective measures including population restocking in areas with low population densities using rabbits from other geographical areas have been performed. In this study we evaluate the impact restocking has had on the...

Fecal nitrogen in European rabbit ecological studies

Measuring the quality of the nutritional resources available to wild herbivores is critical to understanding trophic regulation processes. However, the direct assessment of dietary nutritional characteristics is usually difficult, which hampers monitoring nutritional constraints in natural populations. The feeding ecology of ruminant herbivores has been often assessed by analyzing fecal nitrogen (FN) concentrations, although this method has been less evaluated in other taxa. This study...