The Impact of Allee Effect on a Predator-Prey Model with Holling Type II Functional Response

Abstract

There is currently much interest in predator–prey models across a variety of bioscientific disciplines. The focus is on quantifying predator–prey interactions, and this quantification is being formulated especially as regards climate change. In this article, a stability analysis is used to analyse the behaviour of a general two-species model with respect to the Allee effect (on the growth rate and nutrient limitation level of the prey population). We present a description of the local and non-local interaction stability of the model and detail the types of bifurcation which arise, proving that there is a Hopf bifurcation in the Allee effect module. A stable periodic oscillation was encountered which was due to the Allee effect on the prey species. As a result of this, the positive equilibrium of the model could change from stable to unstable and then back to stable, as the strength of the Allee effect (or the ‘handling’ time taken by predators when predating) increased continuously from zero. Hopf bifurcation has arose yield some complex patterns that have not been observed previously in predator-prey models, and these, at the same time, reflect long term behaviours. These findings have significant implications for ecological studies, not least with respect to examining the mobility of the two species involved in the non-local domain using Turing instability. A spiral generated by local interaction (reflecting the instability that forms even when an infinitely large carrying capacity is assumed) is used in the model.