A theoretical approach to understanding population dynamics with seasonal developmental durations (Q683951)

The purpose of this paper is to create a synthesized mathematical approach to the study of biological systems with seasonal forcing, in particular, with seasonal variations on developmental duration. Starting from the age-structured PDE model with periodic parameters, based on the McKendrick and von Foerster model, the authors reduce the PDE equation to a periodic system of delay differential equations with periodic delay. Due to the seasonality of developmental duration the model system involves a term related to the rate of change. It is shown analytically and numerically that the derivative of the developmental duration must be smaller then one, which is also required to guarantee the positivity of solutions. The proposed approach is also applied to other ecosystems.