Dataset Information

Habitat requirements of the European brown hare (Lepus europaeus PALLAS 1778) in an intensively used agriculture region (Lower Saxony, Germany).

ABSTRACT:

Background

The European brown hare (Lepus europaeus) typically resides in open habitats in agriculturally dominated landscapes in Europe. Over recent decades, a widely observed population decline occurred, which was attributed to agricultural intensification. However, with political incentives for specific crops, especially maize for energy production, the habitat went through massive changes. Thus, there is the need to identify parameters that characterize a suitable habitat for the brown hare in today's agricultural lands.

Results

We modelled European brown hare densities spatially and temporally explicit over 10 years (2005-2014) across an entire federal state. The generalized additive mixed model confirms a constant decline of the European brown hare population in Lower Saxony. Municipalities with a high proportion of grassland and precipitation totaling up to 900 mm are more favored. Woodland showed an approximately linear negative effect. The most important agricultural crop groups such as winter grains and winter oilseed rape showed overall positive effects on hare densities. However, the effect of maize was unimodal, with a positive effect of medium proportions, but a negative effect of very high proportions. The effect of sugar beet was relatively weak but negative. Brown hares were also more abundant in municipalities with a higher density of vixen with litter and municipalities with a high proportion of wildflower strips showed higher brown hare abundance.

Conclusion

Lower Saxony is a diverse federal state with grassland dominated areas in the northwest, more woodland in the east, but intensive arable land in most remaining areas. The European brown hare-a species with a wide ecological potency-shows preferences to both grassland and the most typical arable crop groups such as winter grains and winter oilseed rape. The substantial increase in maize production within the time frame was likely unfavourable and may be one reason for the decline. Nonetheless, political tools such as the agri-environmental scheme "wildflower strips" were beneficial for the brown hare abundance and may be an option to reverse the decline seen over the 10 years.

SUBMITTER: Sliwinski K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6686498 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Habitat requirements of the European brown hare (Lepus europaeus PALLAS 1778) in an intensively used agriculture region (Lower Saxony, Germany).

Sliwinski Katharina K Ronnenberg Katrin K Jung Klaus K Strauß Egbert E Siebert Ursula U

BMC ecology 20190808 1

<h4>Background</h4>The European brown hare (Lepus europaeus) typically resides in open habitats in agriculturally dominated landscapes in Europe. Over recent decades, a widely observed population decline occurred, which was attributed to agricultural intensification. However, with political incentives for specific crops, especially maize for energy production, the habitat went through massive changes. Thus, there is the need to identify parameters that characterize a suitable habitat for the bro ...[more]

PMID: 31395042

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Project description:In female mammals, reproduction, and in particular lactation, is the energetically most exigent life-history phase. Reproduction is strongly controlled by body reserves and food availability, so females with better body condition or food supply are believed to have higher reproductive output. Additionally, the growth and mortality of young mammals depends on their postnatal development. Therefore, the degree of precociality affects energetic demands for both mothers and young. To study the reproductive performance of the precocial European hare (Lepus europaeus), we analysed relationships between six predictor variables describing maternal and environmental effects and nine response variables relating to reproduction from 217 captive females. We compared the data with those of precocial and altricial mammal species from an extensive literature search. For hares, we found: (1) Heavier females had heavier litters at birth. (2) In summer and spring, total litter mass was larger than in winter. (3) At the end of lactation, the litters of multiparous females were heavier than those of primiparous females. (4) Both older females and females giving birth for the first time had relatively high leveret mortality during lactation. Comparing our results with the literature for other mammals revealed that the body condition (i.e., body mass) of females before birth is predictive of reproductive parameters in both precocial and altricial species. In the precocial hare, female body condition is no longer predictive of reproductive parameters at the end of lactation, whereas in altricial species, female body condition remains predictive of reproduction (litter mass at the end of lactation, offspring mortality) until the end of lactation. We conclude that these effects are caused by precocial offspring feeding on solid food soon after birth and, thus, being less dependent on the mother's body condition during lactation than altricial offspring. In line with this, precociality might have evolved as a way of buffering offspring against maternal effects.

Project description:Over the last decades, the European hare (Lepus europaeus) has become the subject of many interdisciplinary studies due to the sharp Europe-wide population decline. In European hares, the first stage of life until weaning and the subsequent dispersal have been sparsely studied, in particular, habitat selection, movements and survival rate, as juveniles´ precocial lifestyle is dominated by concealment, motionlessness and inconspicuousness. In this study, free-living juvenile European hares (leverets) were detected systematically by thermography (n = 394), radio-tagged or marked (n = 122) from birth until the fifth week of life to research their habitat usage and pre-dispersal movements. The day-resting places and night locations, as well as the distance moved by leverets with aging, were evaluated by generalized linear mixed effect models. In addition, the habitat preference was assessed by a conservative use-availability analysis. Up to the fifth week of life, 30.5% of all leverets used cultivated areas in the daytime. In contrast, the remaining 69.4% animals inhabitated linear or small planar structures in the daytime, with the edges of field tracks, hedges and some ruderal structures clearly being preferred. At nighttime, 93% of all juveniles, which occupied linear structures in the daytime, used the adjoining fields up to 20 m away from the next linear structure. Nocturnal distances of more than 60 m to the next edge rarely occurred before the end of the pre-weaning phase. The time of day and age have a significant influence on the distance moved by juvenile hares. With increasing age, leverets moved less during the day and roamed further at night. The results are largely consistent with the behavioral patterns found in the few previous studies on pre-weaning European hares and show the importance of hiding places for leverets in early life stages. This study should contribute to a better understanding of behavior in juvenile life-history stages of European hares that may help to identify vulnerable phases in their lifecycle. In addition, the findings can refine existing population models and improve conservation efforts.

Dataset Information

Habitat requirements of the European brown hare (Lepus europaeus PALLAS 1778) in an intensively used agriculture region (Lower Saxony, Germany).

Background

Results

Conclusion

Publications

Habitat requirements of the European brown hare (Lepus europaeus PALLAS 1778) in an intensively used agriculture region (Lower Saxony, Germany).

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