Stability and Bifurcation in a Predator–Prey System with Prey-Taxis

Abstract

In this paper, we consider a generalized predator–prey system with prey-taxis under Neumann boundary condition, that is, the predators can survive even in the absence of the prey species. It is proved that for an arbitrary spatial dimension, the corresponding initial boundary value problem possesses a unique global bounded classical solution when the prey-taxis is restricted to a small range. Moreover, the local stabilities of constant steady states (including trivial, semi-trivial and positive constant steady states) are investigated. A further study on the coexistence steady state implies that the prey-taxis term suppresses the global asymptotical stability and influences the steady-state/Hopf bifurcations (if they exist). Analyses of steady-state bifurcation, Hopf bifurcation, and even Hopf/steady-state mode interaction are carried out in detail by means of the Lyapunov–Schmidt procedure. In particular, we obtain stable or unstable steady states, time-periodic solutions, quasi-periodic solutions, and sphere-like surfaces of solutions. These results provide theoretical evidences to the complex spatiotemporal dynamics found in numerical simulations.