Research overview: Canada lynx and the snowshoe hare cycle

The Canada lynx is among the most striking examples of a specialist predator coupled to a single prey, and this overview reviews the classic lynx-hare cycle. Across the boreal forest, lynx populations rise and fall in close synchrony with the roughly ten-year cycle of snowshoe hare abundance, a dynamic documented over more than a century, partly through historical fur-trapping records. When hares crash, lynx suffer reduced reproduction, increased mortality, and dispersal. This tightly coupled predator-prey oscillation is a cornerstone example in population ecology. Understanding it clarifies the lynx dependence on hare-rich boreal habitat and frames concerns about how climate change, by altering snow conditions and hare range, could disrupt one of ecology most famous cycles.