The saddle-node-transcritical bifurcation in a population model with constant rate harvesting

Abstract

We study the interaction of saddle-node and transcritical bifurcations in a Lotka-Volterra model with a constant term representing harvesting or migration. Because some of the equilibria of the model lie on an invariant coordinate axis, both the saddle-node and the transcritical bifurcations are of codimension one. Their interaction can be associated with either a single or a double zero eigenvalue. We show that in the former case, the local bifurcation diagram is given by a nonversal unfolding of the cusp bifurcation whereas in the latter case it is a nonversal unfolding of a degenerate Bogdanov-Takens bifurcation. We present a simple model for each of the two cases to illustrate the possible unfoldings. We analyse the consequences of the generic phase portraits for the Lotka-Volterra system.