Early infections by myxoma virus of young rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) protected by maternal antibodies activate their immune system and enhance herd immunity in wild populations.

The role of maternal antibodies is to protect newborns against acute early infection by pathogens. This can be achieved either by preventing any infection or by allowing attenuated infections associated with activation of the immune system, the two strategies being based on different cost/benefit ratios. We carried out an epidemiological survey of myxomatosis, which is a highly lethal infectious disease, in two distant wild populations of rabbits to describe the epidemiological pattern of the disease.

Exploration forays in juvenile European hares (Lepus europaeus): dispersal preludes or hunting-induced troubles?

Background: Movements of animals have important consequences, at both the individual and population levels. Due to its important implications in the evolutionary dynamics of populations, dispersal is one of the most studied types of movement. In contrast, non-permanent extra home-range movements are often paid less attention.

A multi-event model to study stage-dependent dispersal in radio-collared hares: when hunting promotes costly transience.

Behavioral ecologists have often assumed that dispersal is costly mainly because of unfamiliarity with traversed habitats during dispersal and energy costs of the movement per se; thus, dispersers that have successfully settled should experience survival rates comparable to those of philopatric individuals. In this paper, we tested that hypothesis using 152 radio-collared European hares in a harvested population. We developed a multi-event capture recapture model, combining telemetry data and recoveries and separately modeling the foray probability, the settlement probability, and the permanent dispersal probability.