Abstract
Epidemics are highly unpredictable, and so are real-world population dynamics. In this paper, we examine a dynamical model of an ecosystem with one predator and two prey species of which one carries a disease. We find that the system behaves chaotically for a wide range of parameters. Using the allometric mass scaling of animal and disease lifetimes, we predict chaos if (a) the disease is infectious enough to persist, and (b) it affects the larger prey species. This provides another example of chaos in a Lotka-Volterra system and a possible explanation for the apparent randomness of epizootic outbreaks.
Highlights
Epidemics are highly unpredictable, and so are real-world population dynamics
Real ecosystems are full of noise and unpredictable dynamics
We will examine whether the interplay between a generalist predator and a pathogen that affects one of the preys can cause chaotic dynamics
Summary
We examine a dynamical model of an ecosystem with one predator and two prey species of which one carries a disease. Using the allometric mass scaling of animal and disease lifetimes, we predict chaos if (a) the disease is infectious enough to persist, and (b) it affects the larger prey species This provides another example of chaos in a Lotka-Volterra system and a possible explanation for the apparent randomness of epizootic outbreaks. Neither has chaos been discovered before in the simplest possible predator-prey-disease models with linear functional and numerical responses and mass-action disease dynamics. It is this discovery that we will present and analyse in this paper. It will further elucidate the role of chaos in ecosystems and the interplay between disease and predation
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