A prey–predator model with three interacting species

Abstract

We consider a class of discrete time prey–predator models with three interacting species defined on the two-dimensional simplex. For some choices of parameters of the operator describing the evolution of the relative frequencies, we show that the trajectories approach a heteroclinic cycle and that the ergodic hypothesis does not hold. Moreover, we prove that any order Cesàro mean of the trajectories diverges. For another class of parameters, we show that all orbits starting from the interior of the simplex converge to the unique fixed point of the operator while for the remaining choices of parameters all orbits converge to one of the vertices of the simplex. Contrary to many authors, we study discrete time models but we include a speed function f in the dynamics which allows us to approximate the continuous-time case arbitrarily well when f is small.