The classic 10-year population cycle of snowshoe hares ( Lepus americanus, Erxleben 1777) and Canada lynx ( Lynx canadensis, Kerr 1792) in the boreal forests of North America has drawn much attention from both population and community ecologists worldwide; however, the ecological mechanisms driving the 10-year cyclic dynamic pattern are not fully revealed yet. In this study, by the use of historic fur harvest data, we constructed a series of generalized additive models to study the effects of density dependence, predation, and climate (both global climate indices of North Atlantic Oscillation index ( NAO), Southern Oscillation index ( SOI) and northern hemispheric temperature ( NHT) and local weather data including temperature, rainfall, [...]
