Ecosystem Dynamics and Conservation of European Rabbits

The European rabbit serves as a keystone species in many temperate and Mediterranean ecosystems, shaping vegetation structure, soil processes and food‐web dynamics. Its grazing maintains open habitats that support plant and invertebrate diversity, while its burrowing activity assists nutrient cycling and water infiltration. Population fluctuations driven by habitat fragmentation, viral disease outbreaks and climate variability have profound cascading effects on predators and plant communities. Conservation efforts must balance the species’ ecological importance in its native range with its invasive potential elsewhere. Strategies emphasise restoration of habitat connectivity, adaptive disease control, and integrated monitoring to guide management decisions. Advances in spatial modelling, nutritional ecology and simple field indices now enable targeted interventions that enhance both conservation outcomes and agricultural compatibility across diverse landscapes.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have applied two‐species occupancy modelling to unravel the co‐occurrence patterns of European rabbits and sympatric wild boar. By jointly estimating occupancy and detection probabilities, researchers revealed that the presence of wild boar did not alter rabbit distribution but did increase the likelihood of detecting rabbits during surveys. This work highlights the necessity of accounting for detection biases when inferring interspecific interactions and demonstrates how rigorous statistical frameworks can improve the design of wildlife monitoring programmes in complex, multi‐species landscapes.

Ecosystem Dynamics and Conservation of European Rabbits publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in ecosystem dynamics and conservation of european rabbits across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Keystone species: A species with a disproportionately large effect on ecosystem structure and function relative to its abundance.

Habitat suitability index (HSI): A quantitative model predicting the favourability of a habitat for a given species based on environmental variables.

Occupancy modelling: A statistical approach that estimates species presence and absence while correcting for imperfect detection.

Kernel density estimation: A spatial analysis technique that identifies areas of high occurrence density by smoothing point data.

References

1. Accounting for detection unveils the intricacy of wild boar and rabbit co-occurrence patterns in a Mediterranean landscape. Scientific Reports (2020).
2. Spatiotemporal analysis of landscape dynamics and their use as input for the design of a habitat suitability index: A case study of Oryctolagus cuniculus in a Mediterranean region. Ecological Informatics (2024).
3. Cooke’s index: A simple, cost-effective method for multiple practitioners to estimate European rabbit abundance. Ecological Indicators (2023).
4. Spatial Distribution Patterns, Environmental Drivers, and Hotspot Dynamics of the European Rabbit on a Mediterranean Island: Implications for Conservation and Management. Biology (2025).