Stability and Hopf bifurcation of a delay eco‐epidemiological model with nonlinear incidence rate

In this paper, a three‐dimensional eco‐epidemiological model with delay is considered. The stability of the two equilibria, the existence of Hopf bifurcation and the permanence are investigated. It is found that Hopf bifurcation occurs when the delay τ passes a sequence of critical values. Moreover, by applying Nyquist criterion, the length of delay is estimated for which the stability continues to hold. Numerical simulation with a hypothetical set of data has been done to support the analytical results. This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 10771104 and No.10471117), Program for Innovative Research Team (in Science and Technology) in University of Henan Province (No. 2010IRTSTHN006) and Program for Key Laboratory of Simulation and Control for Population Ecology in Xinyang Normal University (No. 201004) and Natural Science Foundation of the Education Department of Henan Province (No. 2009B1100200 and No. 2010A110017) First published online: 10 Feb 201