¿Provocan las repoblaciones de conejo aumentos en la abundancia local de rapaces?

Abstract

// One of the habitat improvement measures taken for the Iberian Lynx (Lynx pardinus) conservation is the restocking of its main prey populations, the European wild rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), which is quite scarce nowadays. The way of optimizing rabbit population reinforcements at a large scale is being evaluated in different ways; on is investigating the influence of some factors, such as predation, on the success or failure of this action. The main aim of this research is to evaluate whether rabbit restocking causes an increase in the local abundance of raptors which prey upon rabbit. For this reason, the number of raptors in areas with different restocking treatments and a control area - with no restocking - was counted using lineal transects. Raptor abundance differed between areas with different restocking treatment. There were different factors that affected raptor abundance, such as rabbit abundance, from nearest marshland and the existence of nests and communal roosts in restocking areas. It is difficult to know the relative importance of each factor with the methodology used, but rabbit abundance seems to be one of the most relevant factors affecting bird of prey local abundance.