Modeling the avoidance behavior of zooplankton on phytoplankton infected by free viruses

Abstract

In any ecosystem, chaotic situations may arise from equilibrium state for different reasons.To overcome these chaotic situations sometimes the system itself exhibits some mechanisms of selfadaptability. In this paper, we explore an eco-epidemiological model consisting of three aquatic groups: phytoplankton, zooplankton and marine free viruses. We assume that the phytoplankton population are infected by external free viruses and zooplankton get affected on consumption of infected phytoplankton; also the infected phytoplankton do not compete for resources with the susceptible one. In addition, we model a mechanism by which zooplankton recognize and avoid infected phytoplankton, at least when susceptible phytoplankton are present. The zooplankton extinction chance increases on increasing the force of infection or decreasing the intensity of avoidance. Further, when the viral infection triggers chaotic dynamics, high zooplankton avoidance intensity can stabilize again the system. Interestingly, for high avoidance intensity, nutrient enrichment has a destabilizing effect on the system dynamics, which is in line with the paradox of enrichment. Global sensitivity analysis helps to identify the most significant parameters that reduce the infected phytoplankton in the system. Finally, we

Pelagic Bacteria and Viruses in a High Arctic Region: Environmental Control in the Autumn Period

“…They might prefer to ingest larger cells of protists, while the remaining nanoplankton and picoplankton seemed to be responsible for grazing marine bacteria and virus-like particles. Additionally, some modeling studies [ 69 , 70 ] have shown that zooplankton organisms are able to avoid virally infected phytoplankton and this, therefore, might be reflected as a negative correlation between the total zooplankton abundance/biomass and viral density. Our study and previous investigations dealing with autumn and winter Arctic zooplankton [ 29 , 30 ] highlighted the dominance of small copepods in the total zooplankton abundance, most of which are found to be omnivorous, preferring to ingest protozooplankton in the periods of low phytoplankton availability [ 68 ].…”

Effects of toxicity and zooplankton selectivity on plankton dynamics under seasonal patterns of viruses with time delay

“…Here, we review the behaviors of systems ( 1) and ( 25) by performing numerical simulations. The set of parametric values are adopted from numerous literature sources [27][28][29] and are presented in Table 1.…”

“…Biswas et al 28 presented an eco‐epidemiological model where phytoplankton are infected by free viruses and zooplankton tend to avoid infected cells in presence of susceptible one. They observed that the potency of avoidance stabilizes the system by ceasing the chaotic dynamics; at lower avoidance circumstances, the system is stable at zooplankton‐free state.…”