RT Journal Article
T1 Comparison of the Impact between Classical and Novel Strains of Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease on Wild Rabbit Populations in Spain
A1 Santoro, Simone
A1 Aguayo Adán, Juan Antonio
A1 Rouco, Carlos
AB The outbreaks of two strains of rabbit haemorrhagic disease (RHD) (GI.1 and GI.2) inthe Iberian Peninsula have caused substantial economic losses in commercial rabbitries and haveaffected the conservation of rabbit-sensitive predators due to the dramatic decline of their naturalpopulations. However, the assessment of the impact of both RHD strains on wild rabbit populationshas been limited to a few small-scale studies. Little is known about the overall impact within itsnative range. In this study, we described and compared the effects of GI.1 and GI.2 countrywide byusing time series of hunting bag data widely available across the country and compared their trendduring the first eight years after the first outbreak of GI.1 (i.e., 1998) and GI.2 (i.e., 2011), respectively.We used Gaussian generalised additive models (GAM) with the number of hunted rabbits as theresponse variable and year as the predictor to evaluate the non-linear temporal dynamics of thepopulation at the national and regional community levels. The first GI.1 caused a population declineof around 53%, affecting most Spanish regional communities where the disease occurred. The positivetrend observed after GI.1 in Spain ended with the initial outbreak of GI.2, which did not appearto cause a national population decline. In contrast, we found significant variability in the rabbitpopulation trend among regional communities, where some increased, and others decreased. Sucha disparity is unlikely to be explained by a single factor; rather, it appears to result from severalfactors, such as climatic conditions, host resistance improvement, virulence attenuation, or populationdensity. Our study suggests that a national comprehensive hunting bag series could aid in elucidatingthe differences in the impact of emerging diseases on a large scale. Future research should focuson national longitudinal serological studies to shed light on the immunological status of rabbitpopulations in different regions to better understand the evolution of RHD strains and the resistancegained by the wild populations.
PB MDPI
SN 2079-7737 (electrónico)
YR 2023
FD 2023-05
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10272/22179
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10272/22179
LA eng
NO Santoro, S., Aguayo-Adán, J. A., & Rouco, C. (2023). Comparison of the Impact between Classical and Novel Strains of Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease on Wild Rabbit Populations in Spain. In Biology (Vol. 12, Issue 5, p. 728). MDPI AG. https://doi.org/10.3390/biology12050728
NO This work was supported by project LAGMED (www.lagmed.eu, accessed on 5 April 2023) through the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and University (REF: PRIMAS2-11-PCI2019-103698) and the PRIMA programme, an Art.185 initiative supported and funded under Horizon 2020, the European Union’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation and The APC was funded by project LAGMED.
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 30 may 2026