American Institute of Mathematical Sciences

March  2016, 21(2): 373-398. doi: 10.3934/dcdsb.2016.21.373

Microbial disease in coral reefs: An ecosystem in transition

 1 Department of Mathematics, University of Kalyani, Kalyani-741235, India, India

Received  January 2015 Revised  September 2015 Published  November 2015

Infectious disease outbreaks are considered an important factor for the degradation of coral reefs. Reef-building coral species are susceptible to the influences of black band disease (BBD), characterized by cyanobacteria-dominated microbial mat that migrates rapidly across infected corals, leaving empty coral skeletons behind. We investigate coral-macroalgal phase shift in presence of BBD infection by means of an eco-epidemiological model under the assumption that the transmission of BBD occurs through both contagious and non-contagious pathways. It is observed that in presence of low coral-recruitment rate on algal turf, reduced herbivory and high macroalgal immigration, the system exhibits hysteresis through a saddle-node bifurcation and a transcritical bifurcation. Also, the system undergoes a supercritical Hopf bifurcation followed by a saddle-node bifurcation if BBD-transmission rate crosses certain critical value. We examine the effects of incubation time lag of infectious agents develop in susceptible corals after coming in contact with infected corals and a time lag in the recovery of algal turf in response to grazing of herbivores by performing equilibrium and stability analyses of delay-differential forms of the ODE model. Computer simulations have been carried out to illustrate different analytical results.
Citation: Joydeb Bhattacharyya, Samares Pal. Microbial disease in coral reefs: An ecosystem in transition. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - B, 2016, 21 (2) : 373-398. doi: 10.3934/dcdsb.2016.21.373
References:

show all references

References:
 [1] Bernold Fiedler. Global Hopf bifurcation in networks with fast feedback cycles. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - S, 2021, 14 (1) : 177-203. doi: 10.3934/dcdss.2020344 [2] Yangjian Sun, Changjian Liu. The Poincaré bifurcation of a SD oscillator. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - B, 2021, 26 (3) : 1565-1577. doi: 10.3934/dcdsb.2020173 [3] Susmita Sadhu. Complex oscillatory patterns near singular Hopf bifurcation in a two-timescale ecosystem. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - B, 2020  doi: 10.3934/dcdsb.2020342 [4] Kerioui Nadjah, Abdelouahab Mohammed Salah. Stability and Hopf bifurcation of the coexistence equilibrium for a differential-algebraic biological economic system with predator harvesting. Electronic Research Archive, 2021, 29 (1) : 1641-1660. doi: 10.3934/era.2020084 [5] Xianyong Chen, Weihua Jiang. Multiple spatiotemporal coexistence states and Turing-Hopf bifurcation in a Lotka-Volterra competition system with nonlocal delays. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - B, 2020  doi: 10.3934/dcdsb.2021013 [6] Joel Kübler, Tobias Weth. Spectral asymptotics of radial solutions and nonradial bifurcation for the Hénon equation. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - A, 2020, 40 (6) : 3629-3656. doi: 10.3934/dcds.2020032 [7] Chihiro Aida, Chao-Nien Chen, Kousuke Kuto, Hirokazu Ninomiya. Bifurcation from infinity with applications to reaction-diffusion systems. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - A, 2020, 40 (6) : 3031-3055. doi: 10.3934/dcds.2020053 [8] Yiwen Tao, Jingli Ren. The stability and bifurcation of homogeneous diffusive predator–prey systems with spatio–temporal delays. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - B, 2021  doi: 10.3934/dcdsb.2021038 [9] Kuo-Chih Hung, Shin-Hwa Wang. Classification and evolution of bifurcation curves for a porous-medium combustion problem with large activation energy. Communications on Pure & Applied Analysis, 2021, 20 (2) : 559-582. doi: 10.3934/cpaa.2020281 [10] Jaume Llibre, Marzieh Mousavi. Phase portraits of the Higgins–Selkov system. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - B, 2021  doi: 10.3934/dcdsb.2021039 [11] Héctor Barge. Čech cohomology, homoclinic trajectories and robustness of non-saddle sets. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - A, 2020  doi: 10.3934/dcds.2020381 [12] Bing Yu, Lei Zhang. Global optimization-based dimer method for finding saddle points. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - B, 2021, 26 (1) : 741-753. doi: 10.3934/dcdsb.2020139 [13] Wenxiong Chen, Congming Li, Shijie Qi. A Hopf lemma and regularity for fractional $p$-Laplacians. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - A, 2020, 40 (6) : 3235-3252. doi: 10.3934/dcds.2020034 [14] Nabahats Dib-Baghdadli, Rabah Labbas, Tewfik Mahdjoub, Ahmed Medeghri. On some reaction-diffusion equations generated by non-domiciliated triatominae, vectors of Chagas disease. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - B, 2020  doi: 10.3934/dcdsb.2021004 [15] Helmut Abels, Andreas Marquardt. On a linearized Mullins-Sekerka/Stokes system for two-phase flows. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - S, 2020  doi: 10.3934/dcdss.2020467 [16] Helmut Abels, Johannes Kampmann. Existence of weak solutions for a sharp interface model for phase separation on biological membranes. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - S, 2021, 14 (1) : 331-351. doi: 10.3934/dcdss.2020325 [17] Tian Ma, Shouhong Wang. Topological phase transition III: Solar surface eruptions and sunspots. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - B, 2021, 26 (1) : 501-514. doi: 10.3934/dcdsb.2020350 [18] Lin Shi, Dingshi Li, Kening Lu. Limiting behavior of unstable manifolds for spdes in varying phase spaces. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - B, 2021  doi: 10.3934/dcdsb.2021020 [19] Tomáš Smejkal, Jiří Mikyška, Jaromír Kukal. Comparison of modern heuristics on solving the phase stability testing problem. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - S, 2021, 14 (3) : 1161-1180. doi: 10.3934/dcdss.2020227 [20] Zaizheng Li, Qidi Zhang. Sub-solutions and a point-wise Hopf's lemma for fractional $p$-Laplacian. Communications on Pure & Applied Analysis, 2021, 20 (2) : 835-865. doi: 10.3934/cpaa.2020293

2019 Impact Factor: 1.27