Fear and Hunting Cooperation's Impact on the Eco-Epidemiological Model's Dynamics

Abstract

Due to the fact that living organisms do not exist individually, but rather exist in clusters interacting with each other, which helps to spread epidemics among them. Therefore, the study of the prey-predator system in the presence of an infectious disease is an important topic because the disease affects the system's dynamics and its existence. The presence of the hunting cooperation characteristic and the induced fear in the prey community impairs the growth rate of the prey and therefore affects the presence of the predator as well. Therefore, this research is interested in studying an eco-epidemiological system that includes the above factors. Therefore, an eco-epidemiological prey-predator model incorporating predation fear and cooperative hunting is built and examined. It is considered that the disease in the predator is of the SIS kind, which means that the infected predator can recover and become susceptible through medical treatment. All possible equilibrium points have been found. The solution's positivity and boundedness are examined. Local and global stability analyses are performed. The uniform persistence conditions are established. The local bifurcation around the equilibrium points is studied. Finally, numerical simulation is performed to validate the obtained results and comprehend the parameter impact on system dynamics.