Bifurcations and Dynamics of a Predator–Prey Model with Double Allee Effects and Time Delays

Abstract

In this paper, a predator–prey system with double Allee effects and time delay is considered. On the one hand, by using time delay as bifurcation parameter, the stability of the interior equilibrium point is studied. It is shown that under certain assumptions the equilibrium point of the delay model is locally asymptotically stable for all delay values, otherwise, there is a critical value, such that the equilibrium point is locally stable when time delay is less than the critical value, and Hopf bifurcation occurs when the delay crosses the critical value. Numerical simulations are carried out to validate the analytical results. On the other hand, we investigate the following four submodels respectively: the time-delayed system without Allee effect, the time-delayed system with Allee effect on predator, the time-delayed system with Allee effect on prey and the time-delayed system with double Allee effects. Compared with the situation without Allee effects, Allee effect on predator causes a decline of the equilibrium state of the predator, the equilibrium state of the prey and critical time delay are almost unaltered; Allee effect on prey and Allee effect on prey and predator all lead to the descent of the equilibrium state of the predator and prey, inversely, and critical time delay has an obvious rise. A comparison of the four cases indicates that Allee effect can alter the magnitudes of predator density and prey density at future time, the time that predator and prey cost to keeping steady state is also changed.