Stability and Bifurcation Analysis of a Delayed Three Species Food Chain Model with Crowley-Martin Response Function

In this paper we have studied the dynamical behaviors of three species prey-predator system. The interaction between prey and middle-predator is Crowley-Martin type functional response. Positivity and boundedness of the system are discussed. Stability analysis of the equilibrium points is presented. Permanence and Hopf-bifurcation of the system are analyzed under some conditions. The effect of discrete time-delay is studied, where the delay may be regarded as the gestation period of the super-predator. The direction and the stability criteria of the bifurcating periodic solutions are determined with the help of the normal form theory and the center manifold theorem. Extensive numerical simulations are carried out to validate our analytical findings. Implications of our analytical and numerical findings are discussed critically