Research overview: rabbit hemorrhagic disease and Iberian lynx prey collapse
The Iberian lynx is a hyperspecialist on European rabbit, so rabbit population crashes from rabbit hemorrhagic disease (RHDV, including the RHDV2 variant) and myxomatosis directly threaten the cat. This overview surveys how these viral diseases periodically collapse rabbit numbers across Iberia, how disease dynamics interact with climate, habitat, and land use, and why prey scarcity is treated as a primary constraint on lynx recovery. It reviews efforts to restore rabbit populations through habitat management, restocking, and vaccination, and the difficulty of managing wildlife disease at landscape scale. The synthesis explains why Iberian lynx conservation is inseparable from rabbit epidemiology, a coupling that climate change can further destabilize.
Species
Category:climate-habitat-change
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