Competition between European and Mountain hares in the Alps: revealed by diet preferences?

The general goal of this study was to investigate the diet preferences of the Alpine mountain hare. Our hypotheses were: (1) diet preferences of Alpine mountain hares differ within the vegetation period, at low and high elevation ranges, and in different landscape types; (2) the detectability of diet preferences varies with respect to the level of plant identification and the extent of plant species diversity of a landscape. We tested these hypotheses by analysing the botanical composition of mountain hare faeces and compared these values with the food plants available at the begin-ning and end of the vegetation period in two different landscape types at different elevation ranges for two years in the Alps.