Phase Plane. Ex. 6.4.

2
Rabbits & Sheep

John F. Mateus R.*

Universidad Pedagogica y Tecnologica de ColombiaUPTC
13 de octubre de 2017

Consider the following rabbits vs sheep problem, whe-re x, y 0. Find the fixed points,
investigate their stability, draw the nullclines, and sketch plausible phase portraits. Indicate
the basins of attraction of any stable fixed points.
(
x = x(3 2x y) ,
(1)
y = y(2 x y) .

Solution

Fixed points:
First, we find the fixed points (x , y ) for which (x, y) = (0, 0). We have that the Eqs. (1)
become in:
(
0 = x (3 2x y ) ,
(2)
0 = y (2 x y ) .

Thus, the first fixed point is obviously (0, 0).

If y 6= 0 but x = 0 we have:

(2 x y )|x =0 = 0 2 y = 0 y = 2 . (3)

So, the second fixed point is (0, 2).

Now, if y = 0 but x 6= 0 we have:
3
(3 2x y )|y =0 = 0 3 2x = 0 x = . (4)
2
So, the third fixed point is (3/2, 0).
Finally, if (x , y ) 6= (0, 0) we have:

3 2x y = 0 , 2 x y = 0 . (5)
*
e-mail: john.mateus@uptc.edu.co

1
Substract from the left side Eq. the right side Eq. in (5) we have:

1 x = 0 x = 1 . (6)
As we have y = 2 x from right side Eq. in (5), then y = 1, and therefore, the fourth fixed
point is (1, 1).
Thus, we have the next fixed points for this exercise:

P1 = (0, 0) P2 = (0, 2) P3 = (3/2, 0) P4 = (1, 1) (7)

Nullclines:
We find now the nullclines, that is, the points at the phase plane where the flux is only vertical
or only horizontal. We started with horizontal flux, that is, y = 0. If y = 0 we have y = 0 or
2 x y = 0.
If y = 0 the nullcline is the x-axis, for all points at this axis the flux is only horizontal. To know
the direction of this flux we must analized x under the condition y = 0. For this we have:
x = x(3 2x y)|y=0 = x(3 2x) . (8)
Hence, x > 0 in x [0, 3/2) and x < 0 in x (3/2, ), that is, flux goes rigth for 0 < x < 3/2
and goes left for 3/2 < x < .
If y 6= 0 we must have 2 x y = 0, so y = 2 x is the second nullcline for only horizontal
flux. Therefore, for x we have x = x(3 2x (2 x)) = x(1 x). The flux going to the rigth
for 0 < x < 1 and going to the left for 1 < x < 2. This situations are shown in the Fig. 1 in
blue color.

NV2

P2 bc

b P4

NV1
NH4

bc bc
P1 NH3 P3 x

Figura 1: Nullclines and direction of the flux for this exercise. In blue we show only horizontal
flux and in red we show only vertical flux.

Now, we analize the vertical flux only. The same manner like before, we have x = 0 that implies
two situations: first consider that x = 0 or 3 2x y = 0. If we take first x = 0 the y-axis
become in a nullcline. For this line we have that the flux will be up for 0 < y < 2 and down for
2 < y < . If x 6= 0, we need that 3 2x y = 0, so x = (3 y)/2 is the second vertical flux
nullcline. This situation implies that y is upward for 1 < x < 3/2 and downward for 0 < x < 1.
This is shown in Fig. 1.

Stability of fixed points:

To stablished the stability of the fixed points, we need the linearized system. To make this, we
use the Jacobian matrix J for the system (1) and then we evaluate this matrix at each fixed
point.
The Jacobian matrix for (1) is:
" #
3 4x y x
J = . (9)
y 2 x 2y

At P1 :
" #
3 0
J (P1 ) = . (10)
0 2

For this point we have = 5, = 6 and 2 4 = 1, so, P1 is an unstable node. Furthermore

the eigenvalues are 1 = 3 and 2 = 2 with eigenvectors v1 = (1, 0) and v2 = (0, 1). We can
see that |1 | > |2 | hence v1 is the fast eigendirection and v2 is the slow eigendirection.

At P2 :
" #
1 0
J (P2 ) = . (11)
2 2

For this point we have = 1, = 2 and 2 4 = 9, so, P2 is a saddle node. Furthermore

the eigenvalues are 1 = 1 and 2 = 2 with eigenvectors v1 = (3, 2) and v2 = (0, 1). We can
see that |1 | < |2 | hence v1 is the slow eigendirection and v2 is the fast eigendirection.

At P3 :
" #
3 3/2
J (P3 ) = . (12)
0 1/2

For this point we have = 5/2, = 3/2 and 2 4 = 49/4, so, P3 is a saddle node.
Furthermore the eigenvalues are 1 = 1/2 and 2 = 3 with eigenvectors v1 = (3, 7) and
v2 = (1, 0). We can see that |1 | < |2 | hence v1 is the slow eigendirection and v2 is the fast
eigendirection.
Finally, at P4 :
" #
2 1
J (P4 ) = . (13)
1 1

For this point we have = 3, = 1 and 2 4 = 5, so, P4 is a stable node. Furthermore

3+ 5 3+ 5
the eigenvalues are 1 = and 2 = with eigenvectors v 1 = (1 5, 2) and
2 2
v2 = (1 + 5, 2). We can see that |1 | < |2 | hence v1 is the slow eigendirection and v2 is the
fast eigendirection.
This situations are sketeched in Fig. 2.

bc
P2
f

b
s P4
s

s
bc bc
P1 f P3 f x

Figura 2: Stability of all fixed points. We show the eigendirections (fast in red, slow in blu) for
each fixed point and the behavior near to the fixed points