The European brown hare (Lepus europaeus) is a characteristic inhabitant of agricultural Landscapes. Originally a resident of the vast steppes of Eurasia, today it is found as a cultural successor mainly on agriculturally overgrown areas. In many places, a decline in hare populations can be observed, probably due to the intensification of agriculture and the resulting loss of structural diversity. As a result, forests are becoming increasingly important as habitats for the brown hare.
In this study, the distribution of the brown hare in the Pfälzerwald (Germany, Rhineland-Palatinate) should be considered. Since there are hardly any published studies on the habitat use of brown hares in large, closed forest areas, this topic is approached here.
The data obtained from the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) photo trap monitoring of the Research Institute of Forest Ecology and Forestry Rhineland-Palatinate (FAWF) in Trippstadt showed a total of 9017 events of various wild animals. Of these, 887 events of brown hares have been documented. Based on these 887 phototrapping events with brown hares, we will now investigate how the brown hare population behaves in closed, large forest areas. The aim of this study is to find out whether the occurrence of brown hares in the Pfälzerwald is related to the availability of open space.
By calculating the distance between camera sites and the nearest open spaces, a possible dependency on these was investigated. In total, 52 of the 80 camera sites documented hare events, which represents 65% of all phototrap sites. Based on the distribution of the brown hare events in the study area, a frequentation of western areas of the Pfälzerwald was observed. This is probably due to the higher mountain ranges in the east, which record higher precipitation amounts (up to 1100 mm). This does not represent good conditions for brown hare populations, as their optimum is below 500 mm annual precipitation. When looking at the distances of the camera sites to the different open space categories (without capture rates), shorter distances tended to be identified for brown hare sites. The descriptive evaluation of the calculated data did not show any correlation with the weekly capture rates. Furthermore, the statistical evaluation showed no significance between the distance of camera locations to open space categories and their capture rates. The Spearman rank correlation coefficient only showed a negative correlation. Thus, it can be assumed that hare occurrence decreases with increasing distance to open areas. This suggests a possible influence of variables that have not been investigated.