On the dynamics of a class of perturbed cyclic Lotka-Volterra systems

Abstract

We consider a special class of Lotka–Volterra systems where the associated interaction matrix is cyclic, but asymmetric, with a perturbation term on each row. After some discussion of the dynamics under a general setting, we focus our attention on 3D systems for a more detailed study. We derive sufficient conditions for the existence and stability of the nontrivial interior equilibrium. We also show that Hopf bifurcation occurs when the size of the perturbation is large. Such analysis can be similarly extended to higher dimensional systems, and we mention some results in 4D case.