Assessment of the suitability of latrine counts as an indirect method by which to estimate the abundance of European rabbit populations at high and low abundanceShow others and affiliations
2020 (English)In: European Journal of Wildlife Research, ISSN 1612-4642, E-ISSN 1439-0574, Vol. 66, no 1, article id 10Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Monitoring European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) populations using suitable methods is crucial, especially in those areas in which endangered predators remain and rabbits occur at low densities. We first counted the number of rabbits, the number of scattered pellets, and the number of latrines counted within 16 plots established in areas of low rabbit density, showing that the number of rabbits counted inside the plots was more closely correlated with the number of pellets counted than with the number of latrines. In addition, no latrines were found in 8 plots. In 53 walking transects, the number of pellets m−2 and the number of latrines km−1 had a positive relationship, but no significant correlation was obtained between the two methods when only the transects with a low rabbit abundance were selected. These results suggest that although counting latrines can be useful to compare areas with different abundances, it may underestimate rabbit abundance at low abundances where counting scattered pellets is, therefore, the most accurate alternative. © 2019, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2020. Vol. 66, no 1, article id 10
Keywords [en]
Abundance indices, Latrines count, Oryctolagus cuniculus, Population abundance, Wildlife monitoring
National Category
Biological Sciences
Research subject
Innovative Learning
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-31376DOI: 10.1007/s10344-019-1349-4ISI: 000511667800001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85077051223OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hig-31376DiVA, id: diva2:1382921
2020-01-072020-01-072021-03-30Bibliographically approved