Dynamics of a toxic producing phytoplankton-zooplankton model with three-dimensional patch (Q2233240)

Of concern in this paper is the bifurcation analysis of a 2-dimensional phytoplankton-zooplankton Kolmogorov-like ODE model. The authors extend earlier results obtained in [\textit{J. Chattopadhyay} et al., J. Theor. Biol. 253, No. 2, 289--295 (2008; Zbl 1398.92270)], where the existence and stability of the equilibria are discussed and the occurrence of a Hopf bifurcation is proved, by noting that richer dynamics may also be observed. In this regard, it is shown that if the model has two distinct positive equilibria, then bistability between an interior equilibrium or a limit cycle and a boundary equilibrium occurs. Also, if the positive equilibria coincide, then the system undergoes a saddle-node or Bogdanov-Takens bifurcation. From a biological viewpoint, this means that the dynamics of the system is highly dependent on the initial data and can be drastically affected by the fluctuations of the environment.