Analysis of a predator-prey model with specific time scales: a geometrical approach proving the occurrence of canard solutions.

We study a predator-prey model with different characteristic time scales for the prey and predator populations, assuming that the predator dynamics is much slower than the prey one. Geometrical Singular Perturbation theory provides the mathematical framework for analyzing the dynamical properties of the model. This model exhibits a Hopf bifurcation and we prove that when this bifurcation occurs, a canard phenomenon arises.