The presence of rabbit burrows in farmland depends on how far they are from a highway

What is it about?

Farming and building partition the habitat of rabbits reducing the places where they can bury their warrens, which affect the resources they can get. We looked at where rabbits live in patches of natural vagetation among croplands and roads. We studied where rabbit warrens are, how many there are, and how big they are in different areas of natural land.

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Why is it important?

Rabbits are important because they're food for other animals (including endangered species such as the Iberian Imperian Eagle, Aquila adalberti, and the Iberian Lynx, Lynx pardinus), and they strongly modified the environment. We found that rabbits are more likely to live in areas with steeper slopes, rounder shapes, and closer to roads. Bigger patches of natural land have more rabbit warrens, and bigger warrens are found in bigger, steeper, and longer patches. More rabbit warrens are near roads, maybe because roads act as barriers, and rabbits have to live there since they could not disperse further. Although it also may be because rabbits like the habitat and feel safer from predators there Our study shows that roads change where rabbit bury their warrens , which could affect how many rabbits there are and also the animals that eat them.

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