The Effect of Habitat Fragmentation on Cyclic Populations with Edge Behaviour

Habitat fragmentation is an important area of concern in species conservation, Habitat fragmentation can affect population distributions through reductions in suitable habitat, and through organism responses to different habitat types and the transitions between them. in earlier work, the effect of habitat fragmentation on cyclic populations was investigated in the context of populations that show no behavioural response to the interface between habitat types. in this paper, we extend the earlier work by adding edge-mediated behaviour to the models. That is, we investigate the dynamics that result when oscillatory predator and prey species also exhibit behavioural responses to habitat interfaces. Our results show generally that habitat loss decreases the amplitude and the average density of the prey and predator populations, but that most of the reponses observed in the two models exhibit marked differences. This work highlights the complexity of the interplay between population cycles, habitat fragmentation, and edge-mediated behaviour, and the need to study such systems in greater detail.