Stable coexistence mediated by specialist harvesting in a two zooplankton-phytoplankton system

This paper deals with a predator-prey model with specialist harvesting, representing a two predators (Zooplankton) and one resource (Phytoplankton) system. First, the existence and stability of equilibria is analyzed both from local and global point of view. Our results indicate that a specialist harvesting which is discriminate may mediate the coexistence of the two zooplankton species which competitively exclude each other in absence harvesting. Although in most cases increasing harvesting reduces the two zooplankton species numbers, when harvesting leads to coexistence, it may also lead to increase the two zooplankton species numbers. Furthermore, to protect fish population from over exploitation a control instrument tax is imposed. The problem of optimal taxation policy is then solved by using Pontryagin's maximal principle. It is established that the zero discounting leads to the maximization of the net economic revenue to the society and an infinite discount rate leads to complete dissipation of the net economic revenue to the society. Finally, the impact of harvesting is mentioned along with numerical results to provide some support to the analytical findings.