Role of delay on planktonic ecosystem in the presence of a toxic producing phytoplankton

Abstract

A mathematical model is proposed to study the role of distributed delay on plankton ecosystem in the presence of a toxic producing phytoplankton. The model includes three state variables, namely, nutrient concentration, phytoplankton biomass, and zooplankton biomass. The release of toxic substance by phytoplankton species reduces the growth of zooplankton and this plays an important role in plankton dynamics. In this paper, we introduce a delay (time-lag) in the digestion of nutrient by phytoplankton. The stability analysis of all the feasible equilibria are studied and the existence of Hopf-bifurcation for the interior equilibrium of the system is explored. From the above analysis, we observe that the supply rate of nutrient and delay parameter play important role in changing the dynamical behaviour of the underlying system. Further, we have derived the explicit algorithm which determines the direction and the stability of Hopf-bifurcation solution. Finally, numerical simulation is carried out to support the theoretical result. Copyrigth © 2011 Swati Khare et al.