Stage structured prey-predator model incorporating mortal peril consequential to inefficiency and habitat complexity in juvenile hunting

TL;DR

This paper develops a predator-prey model considering juvenile and mature predator stages, habitat complexity, and inefficiency, analyzing stability, bifurcations, and the impact of juvenile inefficiency on ecosystem dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel predator-prey model incorporating juvenile inefficiency and habitat effects, analyzing complex stability and bifurcation phenomena.

Findings

Juvenile inefficiency significantly influences species densities.

Existence of limit cycles due to juvenile inefficiency parameters.

Habitat complexity affects predator-prey stability and persistence.

Abstract

Dynamic exploration for a predator-prey bio-system of two species with ratio-dependent functional response is carried out, where the capability to predate in both the stages of the predator, the juvenile and the matured, is taken into account. But, only the matured predators are inferred to be efficient in killing the prey without any negative repercussions. The mortality risks for the juvenile predators are attributable to the inefficiency rate of juveniles coupled with habitat complexity which is either in the form of anti-predator behavior of the prey taken with the aid of their habitat or in the form of a territorial generalist mesopredator. So as to avoid extinction of either of the species and to preserve the food chain of the ecological system, the results pertaining to the existence and stability of all the equilibrium points of the bio-system along with permanence, transcritical and Hopf bifurcation has been thoroughly studied. Corroboration of the results along with the dependence of the biosystem on some crucial parameters is done through numerical simulation. It is found that juvenile predators' inefficiency relative to the resistance confronted, plays a crucial role to control each species density of the ecosystem, as an intriguing limit cycle between the trivial and axial equilibriums of the proposed system along with the co-existing periodic point, because of some ineffeciency parametric value of the juvenile predator has been witnessed.