Dynamical behavior of a food chain model with prey toxicity

This paper deals with a three-dimensional plant-herbivore-predator model that incorporates explicitly the plant toxicity in plant-herbivore interactions. The existence and stability conditions of all the feasible equilibria are established. Our results indicate that plant toxicity may play a key role in the dynamical behavior of the system. By adding another plant species with a different toxicity level to this system, we derive threshold conditions on the invasion of the second plant species. The analysis indicates that several parameters may be critical to determine successful invasion. Numerical simulations are also provided to reinforce the theoretical conclusions.