Spatiotemporal flow-induced instability of predator–prey model with Crowley–Martin functional response and prey harvesting

Abstract

Ecological systems can generate striking large-scale spatial patterns through local interactions and migration. In the presence of diffusion and advection, this work examines the formation of flow-induced patterns in a predator–prey system with a Crowley–Martin functional response and prey harvesting, where the advection reflects the unidirectional flow of each species migration (or flow). Primarily, the impact of diffusion and advection rates on the stability and the associated Turing and flow-induced patterns are investigated. The theoretical implication of flow-induced instability caused by population migration, mainly the relative migrations between prey and predator, is examined, and it also shows that Turing instability is the particular condition of flow-induced instability. The influence of the relative flow of both species and prey-harvesting effort on the emerging pattern is reported. Advection impacts a wide range of spatiotemporal patterns, including bands, spots, and a mixture of bands and spots in both harvested and unharvested dynamics. We also observe the diagonally bend-type banded patterns and straight-type banded patterns due to positive and negative relative flows, respectively. Here, the increasing relative flow increases the band length. The growing harvesting effort also decreases the band length, producing a thin band and a mixture of spots and bands due to the negative and positive relative flows, respectively. One exciting result observed here is that harvesting effort drives the flow-Turing and flow-Turing–Hopf instability into pure-flow instability.