Hopf bifurcation of a multiple-delayed predator–prey system with habitat complexity

Abstract

This paper proposes a multiple-delayed predator–prey system with habitat complexity and harvesting effort, and investigates the dynamical behavior including stability properties and Hopf bifurcation. Firstly, stability of equilibrium points and the existence of Hopf bifurcation are investigated and some critical conditions which guarantee the corresponding results are obtained based on mathematical view. Secondly, the explicit formulae for determining the direction, stability and period of the bifurcating periodic solutions are derived by using the center manifold theory and the normal form theory. Finally, in order to verify the theoretical results, some numerical simulations are done to illustrate the results. It is observed that the level of abundance of prey and predator populations depends on the gestation delay if the gestation delay exceeds some critical values.