Modeling and analysis of the food chain's dynamics incorporating flowers, pollinators, and predators: the role of odors

Abstract

For ecological interactions and plant reproduction, scents play a critical part in the food chain, which includes flowers, pollinators, and predators. Floral volatiles are important cues that attract pollinators, which in turn help plants reproduce. Additionally, these smells can affect predators and other higher trophic levels, thereby altering the dynamics of a community. To comprehend how the odor affects their dynamics, this work suggests and examines a food chain model of the aforementioned kind. The food chain model's stability analysis is examined locally with the help of linearization techniques and globally utilizing suitable Lyapunov functions. The possibility of local bifurcations occurring is examined, along with determining their kind using the Sotomayor theorem for local bifurcations. To validate the acquired analytical results and comprehend the influence of parameter values, a numerical simulation is performed.