期刊
ANIMAL CONSERVATION
卷 13, 期 1, 页码 35-42出版社
WILEY-BLACKWELL
DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-1795.2009.00300.x
关键词
spatial behaviour; productivity; body condition; survival; dispersal rates; recruitment
资金
- Spanish Ministry of Education and Science [CGL2004-00346/BOS]
- Spanish Ministry of the Environment under the National Parks 17/2005
- BP-Oil Spain
- Consejeria de Medio Ambiente (Junta de Andalucia) [LIFE-02NAT/8609]
- FPU
In a conservation context, food supplementation is a management tool used to reverse the decline of food-limited populations by means of positive changes in behaviour and fitness that may be reflected in population parameters. The critically endangered Iberian lynx Lynx pardinus has suffered a dramatic decline primarily because of the severe drop of its main prey, the European wild rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus. To reverse this situation, a food supplementation programme has been implemented in Donana, south-west Spain, since 2002. In this study, we assess the utility of providing artificial food to reduce home-range (HR) size, and to increase productivity, survival and recruitment in a scenario of low lynx density, as compared with reference data from the same population in the absence of extra food. Food supplementation produced a significant contraction of core areas, but not of complete lynx HRs. We did not detect any significant change in productivity or dispersal rates, but supplementation could have helped transient adult lynx to settle down. The positive effects of food supplementation may have been partly countered by factors such as inbreeding, Allee effects and disease outbreaks, whose effects may have been exacerbated in this small lynx population. Food supplementation, however, proved useful to retain individuals, to keep range sizes within their normal range of values, thus maintaining spatial organization, and to allow lynx reproduction and kitten survival in areas with very low prey density. Therefore, we recommend keeping an extensive and intensive supplementary feeding programme until the density of wild rabbits will enable the viability of this endangered lynx population.
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