Preferential selection of zooplankton and emergence of spatiotemporal patterns in plankton population

Abstract

This paper deals with the spatiotemporal pattern forming phenomena of plankton populations under preferential selection. For this, a diffusive predator-prey interaction of zooplankton and two phytoplankton populations, where zooplankton feeds on both the phytoplanktons with some preference, is considered and analyzed. Our study reveals that such selective predation may cause various Turing and non-Turing patterns. Non-Turing patterns arise near the neutral preference, however, Turing patterns are more prominent when zooplankton is strongly inclined to either prey. Though all patterns formed in the Turing region are stationary in time, the convergence time of the solutions may be significantly different due to the nature of the roots of the characteristic equation.