posted on July 26, 2004 00:00 Snow quality may affect the
Canadian lynx’s ability to kill its prey, according to new
research suggesting climate may be impacting one of the most
fascinating ecological systems to intrigue biologists for
decades. The University of Alberta’s Dr. Stan Boutin is part of
a research team to study the relationship between the lynx and
the snowshoe hare—an interaction that has grave implications on
the dynamics of the whole boreal forest. Boutin teamed up with
other researchers from Canada, the United States and
Norway—including evolutionary ecologist Nils Stenseth—to study
the lynx-hare cycle, and how it related to the overall boreal
forest community. Stenseth has previously argued that the
10-year cycle, which means a rise and fall of the hare
population followed by a similar pattern of the lynx, differed
according to regions of the country and those differences were
tied to large-scale climatic patterns. “The genetics of the lynx
are quite different among these Canadian regions and