What If Gone

Species → European Rabbit

European Rabbit

Oryctolagus cuniculus

No global figure published. About a 30% decline across the entire…
Extinction risk Near Threatened
Key preyMediterranean environmentCatastrophic decline
European Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus)
Photo: JM Ligero Loarte, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

What if it disappeared?

Impact High
In Iberia

A new variant of the hemorrhagic disease virus caused rabbit populations to crash by 60 to 70%, followed by a measured 65.7% drop in Iberian lynx reproductive success and a 45.5% drop for the Spanish imperial eagle — two specialist predators that depend on them.

Documented
Detail

Disease-mediated bottom-up regulation: An emergent virus affects a keystone prey, and alters the dynamics of trophic webs. Scientific Reports, 6, 36072 (2016).

The European rabbit makes up more than 85% of the Iberian lynx's diet. The study establishes a direct link between the emergence of the RHDV2 virus variant, the local collapse of rabbit populations, and the measured decline in reproductive success of the two specialist predators most closely dependent on them.

Over the long run

Rabbits serve as prey for some forty predator species on the Iberian Peninsula; a sustained decline could weaken far more than the two specialist predators already documented.

Extrapolated
Detail

Extrapolation à partir de la littérature sur le rôle de proie clé du lapin en Méditerranée occidentale, au-delà des deux cas mesurés directement.

The Iberian lynx and imperial eagle are the best-documented cases because they are strict rabbit specialists. Some forty other predators consume rabbits occasionally without depending on them as closely — the effect on them hasn't been measured individually.

What's missing to confirm it: The precise effect of the rabbit decline on generalist predators that consume them occasionally, rather than depending on them closely, hasn't been measured species by species.

Documentation

Last verified: August 14, 2026

Related species