Harvesting strategies in ecological systems: Evaluating their efficiency in infection dominance

In population biology, the interplay between prey and predators in the presence of infection can give rise to complex dynamics. On the flip side, implementing harvesting is an infection control measure. In the present work, we use the dynamical system theory to discuss the dynamics of the harvested prey–predator system in the presence of infection in prey species. Detailed mathematical and numerical evaluations have been presented to discuss the susceptible‐free state, infection‐free state, predator‐free state, species coexistence, stability, and occurrence of various bifurcations (saddle‐node, transcritical, and Hopf bifurcation). The study reveals the impact of harvesting parameters on the dynamics. Interestingly, we observe that an infection‐free state could be achieved by varying the harvesting parameter under all three harvesting schemes (linear, quadratic, and nonlinear). Moreover, with the help of reproduction number, we claim that linear harvesting is more effective in controlling the infection than quadratic and nonlinear harvesting provided the half‐saturation constant for nonlinear harvesting is greater than a threshold value ; otherwise, nonlinear harvesting is more effective. Also, the system can support more susceptible prey in the presence of harvesting. The present theoretical study suggests different threshold values of implemented harvesting to control the disease.