INTERFERENCE AND GENERATION CYCLES

In this paper we re-examine the derivation of an interference limited functional response due to Beddington (1975 J. Anim. Ecol. 44, 331-340) and extend his treatment to more realistic models of the interference process. We study the dynamic effects of interference in the context of a structured population model and show that the stabilising effect of interference against paradox of enrichment cycles is unaffected by age-structure. We also demonstrate that single generation cycles are much more weakly affected by interference than prey-escape cycles. Thus the net effect of weak interference is to prevent single generation cycles from being masked by the prey-escape cycles which would otherwise dominate the population dynamics. © 1992.