Structural Sensitivity of Chaotic Dynamics in Hastings–Powell’s Model

The classical Hastings–Powell model is well known to exhibit chaotic dynamics in a three-species food chain. Chaotic dynamics appear through period-doubling bifurcation of stable coexistence limit cycle around an unstable coexisting equilibrium point. A specific choice of parameter value leads to a situation, where the chaotic attractor disappears through a collision with an unstable limit cycle originated due to subcritical Hopf-bifurcation around the coexistence equilibrium. As a consequence, the top predator goes to extinction. The main objective of this work is to explore the structural sensitivity of this phenomenon by replacing the Holling-type II functional responses with Ivlev functional responses. In this work, we have shown the existence of two Hopf-bifurcation thresholds and numerically verified the existence of an unstable limit cycle. The model with Ivlev functional responses does not indicate any possibility of extinction of the top predator due to any collision of chaotic attractor with the unstable limit cycle for the chosen range of parameter values. Moreover, the model with Ivlev functional responses depicts an interesting scenario of bistable oscillatory coexistence.