Hopf-Hopf bifurcation in the delayed nutrient-microorganism model

Abstract

In view of time delay in the transport of nutrients, a delayed reaction-diffusion system with homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions is presented to understand the formation of the heterogeneous distribution of bacteria and nutrients in the sediment. With the effects of time delay and diffusion, the system will experience various dynamical behaviors, such as stability, the Turing instability, successive switches of stability of equilibria, the Hopf and the Hopf-Hopf bifurcations. To further understand the dynamics of the Hopf-Hopf bifurcation, the multiple time scale (MTS) technique is employed to derive the amplitude equations at this co-dimensional bifurcation point, and the dynamical classification near such bifurcation point is also identified by analyzing the obtained amplitude equations. Some numerical simulations are carried out to demonstrate the validity of the theoretical analysis.