Dynamics Induced by Delay in a Nutrient-Phytoplankton Model with Multiple Delays

Abstract

A nutrient-phytoplankton model with multiple delays is studied analytically and numerically. The aim of this paper is to study how the delay factors influence dynamics of interaction between nutrient and phytoplankton. The analytical analysis indicates that the positive equilibrium is always globally asymptotically stable when the delay does not exist. On the contrary, the positive equilibrium loses its stability via Hopf instability induced by delay and then the corresponding periodic solutions emerge. Especially, the stability switches for positive equilibrium occur as the delay is increased. Furthermore, the numerical simulations show that periodic-2 and periodic-3 solutions can appear due to the existence of delays. Numerical results are consistent with the analytical results. Our results demonstrate that the delay has a great impact on the nutrient-phytoplankton dynamics.