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International Conference on Mathematical Biology and

Annual Meeting of The Society for Mathematical Biology,

July 27-30, 2009

University of British Columbia, Vancouver

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Program

MSB5c
Rebecca Tyson
University of British Columbia Okanagan
Title The effect of habitat fragmentation on cyclic predator-prey populations
Abstract It is well-known that predator prey populations can exhibit
regular, large-amplitude cycles, and existing models suggest that this behaviour is due to a predator-prey limit cycle. We will examine the effect of habitat fragmentation on the predator-prey cycles by adding diffusion to existing models, and examining solution behaviour on a domain consisting of alternating good and bad habitat patches. We will see that habitat fragmentation tends to decrease cycle amplitude, though the pattern of decrease is very model dependent. Numerical results and theoretical arguments will be presented.
LocationWoodward 5