The refuge effect is critical in ecosystems for stabilizing predator-prey interactions. The purpose of this research was to investigate the complexities of a discrete-time predator-prey system with a refuge effect. The analysis investigated the presence and stability of fixed points, as well as period-doubling and Neimark-Sacker (NS) bifurcations. The bifurcating and fluctuating behavior of the system was controlled via feedback and hybrid control methods. In addition, numerical simulations were performed as evidence to back up our theoretical findings. According to our findings, maintaining an optimal level of refuge availability was critical for predator and prey population cohabitation and stability.

The complex dynamics of a predator-prey system in discrete time are studied. In this system, we consider the prey’s Gompertz growth and the square-root functional response. The existence of fixed points and stability are examined. Using the center manifold and bifurcation theory, we found that the system undergoes transcritical bifurcation, period-doubling bifurcation, and Neimark-Sacker bifurcation. In addition, numerical examples are presented to illustrate the consistency of the analytical findings. The bifurcation diagrams show that the positive fixed point is stable if the death rate of the predator is greater than a threshold value. Biologically, it means that to prevent the predator population from growing uncontrollably and stability of the positive fixed point, the predator’s death rate should be greater than the threshold value.

This work considers a discrete-time predator-prey system with a strong Allee effect. The existence and topological classification of the system's possible fixed points are investigated. Furthermore, the existence and direction of period-doubling and Neimark-Sacker bifurcations are explored at the interior fixed point using bifurcation theory and the center manifold theorem. A hybrid control method is used for controlling chaos and bifurcations. Some numerical examples are presented to verify our theoretical findings. Numerical simulations reveal that the discrete model has complex dynamics. Moreover, it is shown that the system with the Allee effect requires a much longer time to reach its interior fixed point.

In many environments, predators have significantly longer lives and meet several generations of prey, or the prey population reproduces rapidly. The slow–fast effect can best describe such predator–prey interactions. The slow–fast effect ε can be considered as the ratio between the predator’s linear death rate and the prey’s linear growth rate. This paper examines a slow–fast, discrete predator–prey interaction with prey refuge and herd behavior to reveal its complex dynamics. Our methodology employs the eigenvalues of the Jacobian matrix to examine the existence and local stability of fixed points in the model. Through the utilization of bifurcation theory and center manifold theory, it is demonstrated that the system undergoes period-doubling bifurcation and Neimark–Sacker bifurcation at the positive fixed point. The hybrid control method is utilized as a means of controlling the chaotic behavior that arises from these bifurcations. Moreover, numerical simulations are performed to demonstrate that they are consistent with analytical conclusions and to display the complexity of the model. At the interior fixed point, it is shown that the model undergoes a Neimark–Sacker bifurcation for larger values of the slow–fast effect parameter by using the slow–fast effect parameter ε as the bifurcation parameter. This is reasonable since a large ε implies an approximate equality in the predator’s death rate and the prey’s growth rate, automatically leading to the instability of the positive fixed point due to the slow–fast impact on the predator and the presence of prey refuge.