Dynamics in a Predator–Prey Model with Cooperative Hunting and Allee Effect

Abstract

This paper deals with a diffusive predator–prey model with two delays. First, we consider the local bifurcation and global dynamical behavior of the kinetic system, which is a predator–prey model with cooperative hunting and Allee effect. For the model with weak cooperation, we prove the existence of limit cycle, and a loop of heteroclinic orbits connecting two equilibria at a threshold of conversion rate p=p#, by investigating stable and unstable manifolds of saddles. When p>p#, both species go extinct, and when p<p#, there is a separatrix. The species with initial population above the separatrix finally become extinct, and the species with initial population below it can be coexisting, oscillating sustainably, or surviving of the prey only. In the case with strong cooperation, we exhibit the complex dynamics of system, including limit cycle, loop of heteroclinic orbits among three equilibria, and homoclinic cycle with the aid of theoretical analysis or numerical simulation. There may be three stable states coexisting: extinction state, coexistence or sustained oscillation, and the survival of the prey only, and the attraction basin of each state is obtained in the phase plane. Moreover, we find diffusion may induce Turing instability and Turing–Hopf bifurcation, leaving the system with spatially inhomogeneous distribution of the species, coexistence of two different spatial-temporal oscillations. Finally, we consider Hopf and double Hopf bifurcations of the diffusive system induced by two delays: mature delay of the prey and gestation delay of the predator. Normal form analysis indicates that two spatially homogeneous periodic oscillations may coexist by increasing both delays.