Journal
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
Volume 6, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI: 10.1038/srep36072
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Funding
- Recovery of the Iberian lynx populations in Andalusia project [LIFENAT 02/E/8609]
- Conservation and Reintroduction of the Iberian Lynx in Andalusia project [LIFENAT 06/E/209]
- Iberlince - Recovering the historic distribution range of the Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) in Spain and Portugal project [LIFE10 NAT/ES/000570/IBERLINCE]
- project SOS Coelho - Portuguese fund for the Conservation of Nature and Biodiversity
- project Genomics Applied to Genetic Resources
- North Portugal Regional Operational Programme under the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF), through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) [ON.2]
- FEDER funds through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors - COMPETE
- National Funds through FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology [UID/BIA/50027/2013, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006821]
- Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) [IF/01396/2013, SFRH/BD/78738/2011]
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Emergent diseases may alter the structure and functioning of ecosystems by creating new biotic interactions and modifying existing ones, producing cascading processes along trophic webs. Recently, a new variant of the rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV2 or RHDVb) arguably caused widespread declines in a keystone prey in Mediterranean ecosystems - the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus). We quantitatively assess the impact of RHDV2 on natural rabbit populations and in two endangered apex predator populations: the Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) and the Spanish Imperial eagle (Aquila adalberti). We found 60-70% declines in rabbit populations, followed by decreases of 65.7% in Iberian lynx and 45.5% in Spanish Imperial eagle fecundities. A revision of the web of trophic interactions among rabbits and their dependent predators suggests that RHDV2 acts as a keystone species, and may steer Mediterranean ecosystems to management-dependent alternative states, dominated by simplified mesopredator communities. This model system stresses the importance of diseases as functional players in the dynamics of trophic webs.
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