Delay induced stability switch, multitype bistability and chaos in an intraguild predation model (Q893806)

The authors study the stability of equilibria, bistability and chaos for a delay-differential equation (DDE) model from biology. The DDE has three components, one fixed delay and nonlinearities, more specifically bilinear terms and a quadratic term (logistic growth). Obviously different model assumptions (competition, predation) lead to different feedback mechanisms. It is known that different feedback mechanisms have different effects when a delay is introduced: predation and delay typically can expose oscillatory behaviour, whereas for competition models introducing a delay does not induce oscillations. The authors focus on a model that has both feedback mechanisms. The motivation is intraguild predation, which means that predator and prey compete for a resource. Intraguild predation is relevant in ecology. The authors use a combination of analytical and numerical methods for their analysis. Starting with analytical methods they conclude well-posedness from the method of steps and show positivity and boundedness properties. It follows an exhaustive analysis of the existence of equilibria. A main part of the paper consists in a linearized stability analysis of various types of equilibria. The main analytical tool here are results on the location of zeros of certain type of characteristic functions that typically arise in such analysis. Such a function is a transcendental polynomial meaning a polynomial plus the product of a polynomial and \(e^{-\lambda}\), \(\lambda\) being a complex variable. The authors elaborate some detailed results in the appendix. There are also results on global stability which are proven by compiling various results from the literature. The authors use numerical simulations to study more advanced topics like bi-stability of a limit cycle or point equilibrium with another limit cycle, or point equilibrium and chaos.