Dynamics of a three-species food chain model with adaptive traits

A three-species food chain model is proposed with dynamically variable adaptive traits in the intermediate consumer. We prove that its solutions are non-negative and bounded, and we analyze the existence and stability of its equilibria. By applying Li and Muldowney’s [Li MY, Muldowney J. On Bendixson’s criterion. J Differ Equ 1993;106:27–39] high-dimensional Bendixson criterion, we show that the positive equilibrium is globally stable under specific conditions. We support our analytical findings with numerical simulations.