Effects of over-harvesting and drought on a predator-prey system with optimal control
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Open Journal of Ecology
Abstract
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In this paper, a two species predator-prey model is developed where prey is
affected by over-harvesting and drought and predator is affected by drought.
The intention is to investigate the impact of over-harvesting and drought on
predator-prey system, and suggest control strategies to alleviate the problem
of loss of prey and predator species due to over-harvesting and drought. The
control strategies suggested are creation of reserve areas with restriction of
harvesting for controlling over-harvesting and construction of dams for mitigating
drought effects. The results obtained from theoretical and numerical
simulation of the predator-prey model with harvesting and drought without
control strategies showed that, both harvesting and drought affect the predator-
prey population negatively. However, the results obtained from numerical
simulations of the model with control measures showed that, the use of control
strategies one at a time encourages the increase of the prey and predator
species to the optimal population size. Furthermore, the best result is obtained
when control strategies, creation of reserve areas with restriction of
harvesting and construction of dams are applied simultaneously.
Keywords
Predator-Prey System, Over-Harvesting, Drought, Optimal Control