Biometric characterisation and taxonomic considerations of european rabbit Oryctolagus Cuniculus (Linnaeus 1758) in Sicily (Italy)

Abstract

In Sicilian Mediterranean ecosystems the European rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus is a keystone species, very important for popular small game species and for ecological reasons. However, its spread across the island seems to have decreased and fragmented in recent times, but until now no accurate population management has been carried out due to the lack of ethological, ecological and taxonomic knowledge. A biometric analysis of European rabbit specimens from Sicily to widen current taxonomic knowledge was performed. In this paper, 7 body variables and 23 cranial variables of 166 and 120 individuals, respectively, were examined. Thereafter, the results were compared with biometric data from other European populations. The comparison showed that the body size and skull measurement in Sicilian specimens of European rabbit seem to be quite distinct from those given in the literature on rabbit in south-west Spain, whose populations were assigned to Oryctolagus cuniculus algirus subspecies, whereas it was particularly close to the average size of populations in northern Spain and southern France, assigned to Oryctolagus cuniculus cuniculus. Moreover, the Sicilian taxon was not correlated with Bergmann's rule, showing characteristics that could be the result of its introduction, population management or insularity. Biomolecular analyses will be necessary to definitely clarify the taxonomy of European rabbit in Sicily.

Long-term changes in the breeding period diet of Bonelli

“…Similar trends in compensation for reductions in rabbit in the diet of Bonelli's eagles have been reported elsewhere (Ontiveros and Pleguezuelos 2000;Moleón et al 2009Moleón et al , 2012. Our results seem to be consistent with this pattern, which could suggest a decrease in the availability of wild rabbit in Sicily is occurring (Lo Valvo et al 2014, 2017. This is likely, given that in recent decades the wild rabbit has undergone a progressive decline in abundance in Italy (Lo Valvo (Villafuerte et al 1995;Moleón et al, 2007;Caro et al 2011;Resano-Mayor et al 2014).…”

“…In general, main management actions to recover and increase prey populations in the long term could include habitat restoration and implementation of sustainable hunting programmes (Rollan et al 2016). However, when local populations of Mediterranean raptors, such as the Sicilian population of Bonelli's eagle, are subjected to other factors which impact population persistence such as severe habitat degradation (Di Vittorio et al 2012), which is further compounded by severe and sharp reduction in prey species, especially wild rabbit (Lo Valvo et al 2014, 2017, it could be advisable to provide supplementary feeding (Rollan et al 2016) in order to increase productivity in occupied territories until habitats are restored and prey population stability has returned. For example, the ongoing LIFE ConRaSi project (Conservation of Raptors in Sicily) funded by the European Union, supplemented food availability via the construction of several strategically located rabbit farms across eagles' territories.…”

mtDNA diversity in a rabbit population from Sicily (Italy)

“…In addition to morphological data actually used to understand the phylogenetic characteristics of lagomorphs (Lo Valvo et al, 2014;Ge et al, 2015), the genetic and phylogenetic analyses have enabled variations in the genotypic traits to be identified. Here, genetics was useful to analyze the Sicilian O. cuniculus population and overall to distinguish which lineage this population belongs to out of the existing ones: lineage A (O. c. algirus) and lineage B (O. c. cuniculus), as described by Branco et al (2000).…”

“…In this study, we applied genetic analysis as a complement to the previously defined phenotypic descriptors of the O. c. Sicilian population (Lo Valvo et al, 2014), by using the high variable region of cyt b mtDNA. In fact it rapidly accumulates nucleotidic substitutions, producing variants of mtDNA present in a single species, called haplotypes (Ingman et al, 2000).…”

“…However, this statement is based only on the biometric analysis of the body size. Recently, Lo Valvo et al (2014) examined 7 body variables and 23 cranial variables of 166 and 120 individuals, respectively, and compared the results with biometric data from other European populations. They showed that the European rabbit currently present in Sicily does not have a small body size, as assumed by Toschi (1965), but rather has a medium body size as in current populations living in northern Spain and southern France, which are referred to as O. c. cuniculus (Callou, 2002;Ferreira et al, 2015).…”