Research overview: prey switching in lynx during hare lows

An overview of how Canada lynx broaden their diet when snowshoe hares crash, a key feature of the boreal predator-prey cycle. Although lynx are hare specialists, during the hare decline and low they increasingly take alternative prey such as red squirrels, grouse, ptarmigan and small rodents, and scavenge more, though these foods cannot fully sustain reproduction. This survey synthesizes evidence on the timing and extent of prey switching across the cycle, how it relates to the functional response, and why incomplete switching contributes to lynx population collapse rather than buffering it. It connects to classic Kluane studies and to functional-response theory, illustrating how a specialist predator copes with extreme fluctuations in its principal prey and why the cycle persists.