Habitat fragmentation is an important area of concern in species conservation. Habitatfragmentation can affect population distributions through reductions in suitable habitat,and through organism responses to different habitat types and the transitions betweenthem. In earlier work, the effect of habitat fragmentation on cyclic populations wasinvestigated in the context of populations that show no behavioural response to theinterface between habitat types. In this paper, we extend the earlier work by addingedge-mediated behaviour to the models. That is, we investigate the dynamics that resultwhen oscillatory predator and prey species also exhibit behavioural responses to habitatinterfaces. Our results show generally that habitat loss decreases the amplitude and theaverage density of the prey and predator populations, but that most of the reponsesobserved in the two models exhibit marked differences. This work highlights the complexityof the interplay between population cycles, habitat fragmentation, and edge-mediatedbehaviour, and the need to study such systems in greater detail.
