Скачать или смотреть SEASON - Better conservation strategies for the lynx and similar predator-prey systems worldwide

More and more species are under a high risk of extinction due to changes in seasonal patterns.
Here in the Mediterranean, summers are getting longer and hotter and winters are getting shorter and drier.
But we are really bad at predicting which species are most likely to suffer from changes in seasonal weather!
One reason is that we typically look at a species in isolation when projecting their fate. To improve our projections, we have to understand not only how species respond to their environment but also how the environment “manipulates” interactions between species.
But scale is also important! Species interactions occur at the level of individuals that form a population. These populations can live in very different habitats and their responses to changes in seasons will differ between habitats.
Here in Spain, we have one of the rarest mammals on Earth: the Iberian lynx. The lynx lives mainly on rabbits. Rabbits are potentially very sensitive to changes in seasonal weather patterns because they directly depend on plant resources that are increasingly limited in the summer. One result is that they have fewer babies.
So how do changes in rabbit numbers affect the lynx?
We suspect that effects can be dramatic but will differ strongly between the habitats that lynxes inhabit.
This may mean that lynx must become much more mobile to get to their prey; and we will have to create many more safe corridors for them to travel.
On the other hand, if lynxes encounter disadvantages in catching rabbits, may other species benefit?
This research will allow us to create better conservation strategies not only for lynx but also inform on similar predator-prey systems worldwide.