Light driven interactions in spatial predator-prey model with toxicant chemotaxis

TL;DR

This paper models light-driven predator-prey interactions in aquatic systems with toxicants, analyzing stability and periodic solutions influenced by light variability and spatial factors.

Contribution

It introduces a novel spatial-temporal model incorporating light-driven ecotoxicological processes and provides analytical and numerical analysis of its stability and solutions.

Findings

Existence of unique periodic solutions under certain conditions

System returns to equilibrium if motility is fast enough or depth is shallow

Numerical simulations support analytical results under relaxed conditions

Abstract

We develop and analyze a spatial temporal model of light driven ecotoxicological processes, motivated by an aquatic predator-prey system of algae and \textsl{Daphnia} subject to a contaminant. Population dynamics are driven by light, which is periodic in time and varies with spatial depth. The existence and uniqueness of spatial and temporal dependent periodic solutions are shown and analytical functions of the solutions under parameter constraints are presented. We conduct Turing stability analyses of solutions with respect to perturbations of initial conditions. Given a perturbation to a periodic equilibrium state, we show the system will return to this equilibrium state as long as motility is fast enough and/or the reservoir depth is shallow enough. Analytical results assume some Dirichlet boundary conditions that match the periodic equilibrium state, however numerical simulations with more relaxed boundary conditions capture similar periodic solutions. The work sheds light onto spatially dependent population dynamics that are driven by periodic forces, such as light levels.