Uniform Persistence and Periodic Solutions of Generalized Predator–Prey Type Eco-Epidemiological Systems

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze a class of three-dimensional eco-epidemiological models where prey is subject to Allee effects and infection. We first establish the existence, uniqueness, positivity and uniform ultimate boundedness of the solutions for the proposed system in the positive octant. For three subsystems, we investigate the existence of their respective trivial and positive equilibria and determine the conditions for some bifurcations (Hopf bifurcation, Bogdanov–Takens bifurcation of codimension-2 and saddle-node bifurcation) to occur. We find that the Allee effect, nonmonotonic functional response and intra-class competition in susceptible preys enable the S–I and S–P subsystems to have richer dynamics. For example, the S–I subsystem can have up to three positive equilibria, the S–P subsystem with nonmonotonic functional response can have two positive equilibria while it is impossible in monotonic situation, and high intra-class competition in susceptible preys may lead to the extinction of the predator population, etc. We show that the strong Allee effect can create a separatrix curve (or surface), leading to multistability. Then, we study the uniform persistence of the full system and identify an interior periodic orbit by applying Poincaré map and bifurcation theory. Our analysis reveals that the introduction of the infection or predation may act as a biological control to save the population from extinction and the interaction between these two factors yields a diverse array of biologically relevant behaviors. Finally, some numerical simulations are performed to support and supplement our analytical findings.