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Copyright of Mammal Review is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

• Roads are often used by agricultural pest species as dispersal corridors. • Rabbit damage to agricultural production has increased in Iberian Peninsula. • We assessed the distribution of rabbit warrens in motorway verges. • Rabbit warren presence correlated positively with the presence of olive groves. • Our modelling approach allows identifying high risk motorway stretches. Pest species cause significant ecological, social and economic impacts, and programs to control them usually target specific landscape features when pests use these to disperse. Roads or railways are often used by pest species as dispersal corridors, but little is known about the specific characteristics of these human infrastructures that facilitate pest species dispersal. This is particularly evident in the case of native agricultural vertebrate pests like the European wild rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculu s) in the Iberian Peninsula (IP). Rabbit damage to agricultural production in IP has increased notably in recent years. This study uses a 'favourability function' to model the extent to which macroecological favourable conditions for rabbits and different fine-scale variables, including environmental, anthropogenic and agricultural factors, favour the presence of rabbit warrens on the verges of a motorway network in southern IP. For this purpose, we collected rabbit warren locations during car transects using CyberTraker 3.0 installed in a pad along 787 km of motorways. Our results revealed that rabbit warren distribution was widespread along the verges. Rabbit warren presence correlated positively with the presence of olive groves and with macroecological favourable conditions for rabbits. Our results provide strong evidence that rabbits use motorway verges, which are likely to act as dispersal corridors across landscapes. Additionally, our innovative approach, based on a rabbit warren index, the favourability function and a combination of local and macroecological predictors, could be used in many other areas where rabbits cause crop damage to make fine-scale predictions of high risk stretches and, therefore, where to apply mitigation measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Red-legged partridge (Alectoris rufa) populations have significantly declined in the Iberian Peninsula (by > 50% between 1973 and 2002). This decline has been attributed to the drastic changes that have occurred in traditional agricultural landscapes, among other factors. This paper assesses the relationship between landscape change and the changes in areas favourable to partridges. The areas favourable to partridges in Andalusia (southern Spain), and the environmental and land-use factors that determined these areas, were identified for both the 1960s and the 1990s. Land-use changes were analysed both throughout the study area and for areas where favourability for partridges has either improved or worsened during recent decades. Both the location and the factors determining areas favourable to red-legged partridges have changed substantially over recent decades. In the 1960s, areas favourable to partridges were associated mainly with natural vegetation in mountainous areas, whereas, by the 1990s, favourable areas were associated with large low-lying croplands; such change may be attributable to regional land-use changes. The percentage area of the main natural vegetation variables positively correlated to partridge favourability in the 1960s model (mainly pastures and open scrubland) had decreased in areas that had become unfavourable to the species (such as mountain areas), and risen where partridge favourability increased. By the 1990s, the land area favourable to partridges had decreased by c. 10% (c. 6000 km2) in southern Spain, whereas land use unfavourable to partridges markedly increased (> 100%; an increase of c. 3000 km2). Landscape suitable for partridges has thus become severely impoverished over recent decades in the Iberian Peninsula. Management measures aimed at improving the landscape for farmland birds should be encouraged to conserve red-legged partridge populations in southern Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]