The effects of toxin and mutual interference among zooplankton on a diffusive plankton-fish model with Crowley-Martin functional response

A diffusive phytoplankton-zooplankton-fish model with toxin and Crowley-Martin functional response is considered. By the global bifurcation theorem and the fixed point index theory, the existence and multiplicity of coexistence states are discussed. Secondly, we investigate the bifurcation from a double eigenvalue by virtue of Lyapunov-Schmidt procedure and implicit function theorem. Then, the effect of large k, which measures the magnitude of interference among zooplankton, is studied by means of the combination of the perturbation theory and topological degree theory. The results indicate that if k is large enough, this system has only a unique asymptotically stable coexistence state provided that toxin is properly small and the maximal growth rates of phytoplankton and fish are suitably large. Furthermore, the extinction and permanence of the time-dependent system are determined by virtue of the comparison principle. Finally, we make some numerical simulations to validate and complement the theoretical analysis and exhibit the critical role of toxin, spatial diffusion and magnitude of interference among zooplankton in the dynamics. The findings suggest that the spatiotemporal dynamics of the systems with toxin and Crowley-Martin functional response are richer and more complex, and toxin and spatial diffusion have significant effects on the coexistence of phytoplankton-zooplankton-fish species.