DYNAMICS OF ANTI-PREDATOR BEHAVIOR AND EFFECT OF FEAR ON PREY–PREDATOR MODEL

Abstract

Predator–prey interactions are the ubiquitous and natural phenomenon in an ecological system. Predators reduce the prey population’s density by direct killing, which is an essential part of any ecological system. Based on the experimental works, for overcoming predation pressure, prey uses a variety of mechanisms. With Holling type-II functional response, we examined a prey–predator system incorporating anti-predator behavior and the cost of fear into prey. Prey anti-predator activity is a counterattacking strategy in which adult prey targets adolescent predators in order to counteract the potential predation pressure. Fear of predation may disrupt the physiological state of prey species and lead to long loss of prey species. In this study, we investigated this aspect to use a dynamical modeling approach. This research finds a plethora of fascinating phenomena. The studied system exhibits a wide range of dynamics and bifurcations, including saddle-node, Hopf, homoclinic, and a Bogdanov–Takens bifurcation in co-dimension two are among the dynamics and bifurcations observed in the analyzed system. We performed some numerical simulations to investigate the effects of anti-predator behavior and fear on prey and found both affect the prey–predator dynamics significantly. Our numerical examples clearly show that as prey carrying capacity increases, so does the prey’s ability to perceive the risk of predation.