Recent negative trends of wild rabbit populations in southern Spain after the arrival of the new variant of the rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus RHDV2

Guerrero-Casado, José; Carpio, Antonio J.; Tortosa, Francisco S.

doi:10.1016/j.mambio.2016.03.006

Cited by 28 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…In spite of presenting very different European rabbit relative abundances prior to the arrival of RHDV2, the rabbit populations at both areas exhibited highly coherent declining rates coincident with the emergence of RHDV2, suggesting that the RHDV2-induced declining trends in natural European rabbit populations might be irrespective of their initial abundance. Our results are parallel to those reported in other Iberian populations1819, and present a similar scenario to what was observed following the impacts of the first RHDV outbreaks1012, with the difference that young rabbits consist of a target population class for RHDV2, compromising the recruitment of new individuals for natural populations.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

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Disease-mediated bottom-up regulation: An emergent virus affects a keystone prey, and alters the dynamics of trophic webs

Monterroso

Garrote

Serronha

et al. 2016

Sci Rep

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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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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Currently, it has been the only etiological agent detected in Iberian rabbits, suggesting that it might have completely replaced G1 strains1617. Although the rapid spread of this new variant has been associated with further rabbit population declines1819, its impact on Mediterranean trophic webs has not been assessed.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Disease-mediated bottom-up regulation: An emergent virus affects a keystone prey, and alters the dynamics of trophic webs

Monterroso

Garrote

Serronha

et al. 2016

Sci Rep

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“…Although impacts were substantial at some sites, they were somewhat lower than those recorded at more arid, inland sites in South Australia (80%; Mutze et al, ) and substantially lower than the initial impacts of classical RHDV when it entered Australia (Mutze, Cooke, & Alexander, ). However, the average reductions were similar to that reported for rabbit populations in southern Spain (57% reduction) following the arrival of RHDV2 (Guerrero‐Casado, Carpio, & Tortosa, ). We also advocate caution in interpreting direct causation between RHDV2 arrival and impact as the data are largely observational in nature.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Emerging RHDV2 suppresses the impact of endemic and novel strains of RHDV on wild rabbit populations

Ramsey

Cox

Strive

et al. 2020

Journal of Applied Ecology

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Multi‐strain, host‐disease dynamics describe a system where multiple strains of a pathogen compete for susceptible individuals of a single host. The theoretical properties of these systems have been well studied, but there are few empirical studies in wildlife hosts. We examined the impacts of two novel strains of rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV) recently introduced into Australia, one inadvertently (RHDV2) and one deliberately for rabbit biocontrol (RHDV‐K5), by analysing long‐term monitoring data for introduced European rabbits Oryctolagus cuniculus from 18 sites throughout Australia. We examined population‐level impacts using rabbit spotlight counts pre‐ and post‐arrival of the two strains. We also analysed serological data to determine potential interactions among the introduced and existing field strains of RHDV, as well as a pre‐existing benign strain of calicivirus (RCV‐A1). Serological analyses suggested that RHDV2 arrived in Australia during spring 2014 and spread rapidly through the Australian rabbit population within 2 years. Following the establishment of RHDV2, rabbit abundance was reduced by an average of 60%, with impacts most pronounced in South and Western Australia. In contrast, the deliberate release of RHDV‐K5 had little impact on rabbit populations. Although RHDV2 has spread rapidly throughout Australia, our serological analyses do not support the observation that RHDV2 is rapidly replacing existing field strains of RHDV, as was previously reported in Australia and Europe. Nevertheless, RHDV2 has negatively impacted the ability of RHDV and RCV‐A1 to spread within rabbit populations, most likely due to its ability to infect juvenile rabbits, thereby removing them from the pool of susceptible individuals available to be infected by competing strains. Synthesis and applications. The impact of the release of a novel strain of rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV‐K5) for rabbit biocontrol in Australia has been suppressed by the emergence of a competing strain, RHDV2. Hence, the success of further releases of similar RHDV strains for rabbit biocontrol appears doubtful. Despite this, RHDV2 has suppressed rabbit abundances by an average of 60%, with impacts most pronounced in South and Western Australia. Whether the incursion of RHDV2 leads to the competitive exclusion of other endemic RHDV strains remains to be resolved. However, the existence of partial cross‐immunity could allow some level of coexistence between RHDV2 and RHDV strains, at least in the medium term.

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“…These findings closely resemble the situation in Australia, where rabbit numbers were heavily suppressed by RHD between 1995 and 2002, but increased 5 − 10‐fold between 2003 and 2010 . Our findings also show that in 2013 the available online information related to rabbit damage fell sharply, which seems to be only explicable by the population crash caused by a new variant of the RHD virus . It is very likely that the decline in rabbits observed in agricultural areas resulted in reduced rabbit damage, which was reflected in the lower number of websites addressing this issue.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

A large‐scale assessment of European rabbit damage to agriculture in Spain

Delibes‐Mateos

Farfán

Rouco

et al. 2017

Pest Management Science

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BACKGROUND: Numerous small and medium-sized mammal pests cause widespread and economically significant damage to crops all over the globe. However, most research on pest species has focused on accounts of the level of damage. There are fewer studies concentrating on the description of crop damage caused by pests at large geographical scales, or on analysis of the ecological and anthropogenic factors correlated with these observed patterns. We investigated the relationship between agricultural damage by the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) and environmental and anthropogenic variables throughout Spain. RESULTS: Rabbit damage was mainly concentrated within the central-southern regions of Spain. We found that rabbit damage increased significantly between the early 2000s and 2013. Greater losses were typical of those areas where farming dominated and natural vegetation was scarce, where main railways and highways were present, and where environmental conditions were generally favourable for rabbit populations to proliferate.CONCLUSION: From our analysis, we suggest that roads and railway lines act as potential corridors along which rabbits can spread. The recent increase in Spain of such infrastructure may explain the rise in rabbit damage reported in this study. Our approach is valuable as a method for assessing drivers of wildlife pest damage at large spatial scales, and can be used to propose methods to reduce human − wildlife conflict.

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Recent negative trends of wild rabbit populations in southern Spain after the arrival of the new variant of the rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus RHDV2

Cited by 28 publications

References 19 publications

Disease-mediated bottom-up regulation: An emergent virus affects a keystone prey, and alters the dynamics of trophic webs

Disease-mediated bottom-up regulation: An emergent virus affects a keystone prey, and alters the dynamics of trophic webs

Emerging RHDV2 suppresses the impact of endemic and novel strains of RHDV on wild rabbit populations

A large‐scale assessment of European rabbit damage to agriculture in Spain

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