HABITAT
HABITAT UTILIZATION
PREDATORS
Photo Courtesy of http://www.invasivespecies.net/database/species/ecology.asp?si=18&fr=1&sts=
Habitat:
The staff of the Vertebrate Pest Research Section note that the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) originally came from Spain, but are now populated more in the temperate regions of Europe and North Africa, Chile and Australasia. The European rabbit descended from 24 wild rabbits that were released in Geelong around 1859. Originally, the European rabbit was found off the island of the Western Australian coast in 1827 due to mariners leaving the animals to survive there in case they needed to return or for future ship wrecks (NA, 2003).
The place of habitat a European rabbit will select is usually based on the amount of support the area will offer. European rabbits are nocturnal animals that live in burrows or areas that have an ample supply of dense scrub or fallen timber. These types of areas are beneficial by masking them from potential predators, escaping high temperatures and providing high quality food resources (NA, 2003). They live in the open grassland, tend to be found in polygynous groups of about 2-10 members and they usually defend smaller territories about 50m in diameter (Kunkele, 1996).
Moreno et al. discussed the place of habitat and its importance for the European rabbits. The European rabbit tends to reside in vegetated patches for better protection from predators during daylight hours. However, at night, they tend to feed in the open prairie. The authors site the cause of this might be due to the rabbits' mammalian predators stalking the animal in the vegetation. The rabbits sense their carnivorous mammalian predators lurking behind the vegetation before killing, which has forced the European rabbit to feed in the open prairie during the nighttime. Moreno et al. found the mammals also relied on their hearing and smelling senses to capture their prey. Another advantage for the rabbits to feed at night is that they can forge in the open, which enables the rabbits to eat the rich diet not available during the day. The carnivorous mammals that stalk and hunt the rabbit at night rely mainly on smell to capture their prey. They have been known to kill the rabbits in the scrub, on the border between the prairie and the scrub, or within their own burrows. Birds of prey are main predators for rabbits, but Moreno et al. found that they mainly rely on sight to capture rabbits and other prey, not by lurking (Moreno, 1996).
Rabbits choose their habitats based on the different environments or predator protection offered during the breeding season. European rabbits that live in the Mediterranean scrubland have burrow entrances consisting of tree roots and the rabbits in the pastureland of the Donana National Park where the burrows were in a sandy area. One researcher, Palomares, found that pastureland warrens were twice as large and built more frequently in tree roots than the Mediterranean scrubland warrens. In the Mediterranean rabbit population, the warrens were found near tall shrubs, but the pastureland warrens were built around short shrubs. When looking for food or sleeping, the scrub is a good disguise from predation for pastureland rabbits. However, in open habitats, rabbits are more susceptible to dangerous environmental conditions such as flooding, which would explain why the Mediterranean scrubland rabbits would want to build their warrens in scrubland vegetation near tree roots (Palomares, 2003).
The habitats of the European rabbit can be either dispersed or continuous habitats. Virgos et al. looked at the populations of rabbits in either fragmented or continuous habitats to determine the reasons for dispersion. They wanted to see which of the two areas contained a greater frequency of rabbits and the factors attributing to the difference. They looked at two different terrains which was first, a mountainous area in Spain where three habitat types were seen and a plain area in Spain not containing as diverse of a habitat with fewer vegetation. The first region was considered the fragmented or patchy habitat while the second area was used to test the continuous habitat. In this study, 78 areas were studied with 62 fragmented and 16 continuous to conclude that the European rabbit tends to reside in abundant continuous areas instead of fragmented ones due to the abundance of cropland available, or richer resources. Nevertheless, the caution is placed on fragmented areas that have the potential to lead the European rabbit to extinction due to a potential increase in isolation and reduction in population size (Virgos, 2003)
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Habitat Utilization
The survival of the European rabbit is mainly determined by where they have their warren. Lombardi et al. looked at how the European rabbit utilized its habitat. In areas of high predation and low cover, a European rabbit does not have as good of a chance in surviving. Hence, picking an area where there are abundant resources and cover is beneficial for the rabbit. In low scrub areas, Lombardi et al. found there to be a lower amount of food selection and the rabbits' habitat were more dispersed even though there was plenty of cover for the rabbit. In the grassland, there is no protection for the rabbit, but a higher amount of food and more supplies for the rabbit to build its burrow. In an ecotone habitat, there were plentiful and abundant resources for the rabbit. Thus, rabbit population seemed to be the greatest in ecotone areas, versus the scrubland or grassland (Lombardi, 2003).
Predators
The main predators of the scrubland rabbit are raptors. Grassland rabbits encounter carnivores as predators while both carnivores and raptors are found in the ecotone area (Lombardi, 2003). Warrens are mainly used by the rabbit for breeding, and thus having males defend predators are essential.