### Most likely chain of events

- **Immediate (days–weeks)**
  - **Plants**: Sunlight drops ~50% → photosynthesis and growth fall sharply; ash can abrade/smother leaves and seedlings. Net primary production (NPP) plunges.
  - **Rabbits**: Little immediate change; begin drawing down body reserves as forage quality/quantity declines. Reproduction and lactation quickly suppressed.
  - **Foxes**: Minimal immediate change; may temporarily hunt weakened rabbits more easily.

- **Medium term (months–1–2 years)**
  - **Plants**: Prolonged light limitation causes carbohydrate deficits → dieback of annuals and shallow‑rooted species, poor seedling recruitment (ash cover + low light), and lower standing biomass. Community shifts toward shade‑tolerant/early successional species and detritus pathways.
  - **Rabbits**: Food limitation lowers carrying capacity → sharp decline in survival and fecundity (smaller litters, breeding pauses), higher juvenile mortality, more ranging that increases predation risk; potential disease susceptibility rises.
  - **Foxes**: Prey scarcity with a lag → reduced body condition, smaller litters, higher pup mortality, range expansion/emigration, more scavenging; overall population decline trailing rabbits.

- **Longer term during dimming (several years)**
  - **Plants**: Biomass stabilizes at a much lower level; simplified, low‑productivity plant community; soil processes altered by ash (short‑term immobilization of nutrients; surface sealing).
  - **Rabbits**: Remain at low density constrained by low primary production; occasional brief pulses after favorable weather but no sustained growth.
  - **Foxes**: Very low density; possible local extirpation where prey falls below a viable threshold (Allee effects).
  - Reasoning: Bottom‑up energy limitation propagates through trophic levels with time lags (producers → herbivores → predators).

- **After skies brighten (post‑eruption recovery)**
  - **Plants**: Rapid rebound of NPP; ash weathering can add minerals (P, K, trace elements), favoring pioneer/fast‑growing species and dense regrowth.
  - **Rabbits**: Fast population irruption (high fecundity) as food surges and predator pressure remains low initially; risk of a boom‑bust if overshooting forage.
  - **Foxes**: Recover with a 1–2 year lag as prey increases; population cycles re‑establish, potentially with an initial rabbit peak followed by a fox catch‑up.

### Causal logic (summary)
- Sunlight ↓ → plant photosynthesis/NPP ↓ → plant biomass and recruitment ↓ → rabbit carrying capacity ↓ (immediate fecundity cuts, then mortality) → fox carrying capacity ↓ (lagged, stronger decline).
- Recovery reverses this sequence, with the same trophic lags and a likely transient rabbit boom preceding fox recovery.