Dynamics of populations in fish farm: Analysis of stability and direction of Hopf-bifurcating periodic oscillation

The paper deals with the dynamical behavior of fish and mussel population in a fish farm where external food is supplied. The ecosystem of the fish farm is represented by a set of nonlinear differential equations involving nutrient (food), fish and mussel. We have listed some results already obtained. We have analyzed for the direction of Hopf-bifurcation, stability of the Hopf-bifurcating periodic orbits, and the period of the periodic orbits by using Poincare' normal form and center manifold theory. We have performed numerical simulation to support the analytical results. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.