Abstract

We formulate a pest management model with periodically releasing infective pests, immature and mature natural enemies, and harvesting pests and crops at two different fixed moments. Sufficient conditions ensuring the locally and globally asymptotical stability of the susceptible pest-eradication period solution are found by means of Floquet theory, small amplitude perturbation techniques, and multicomparison results. Furthermore, the permanence of system is also derived. By numerical analysis, we also show that impulsive releasing and harvesting at two different fixed moments can bring obvious effects on the dynamics of system, which also corroborates our theoretical results.

1. Introduction

As is known to all, pest outbreaks often cause serious ecological and economic problems. Therefore, how to effectively control insects and other arthropods has become an increasingly complex issue. Usually, chemical pesticides were taken as a relatively simple way to solve the pest-related problems, and some mathematical models on pest management with toxin (pesticide) input were studied in [14]. However, the overuse of chemical pesticides may create new ecological and sociological harm such as pesticide pollution and pesticide-resistant pest varieties and inflicts harmful effects on humans and so forth. Therefore, nonchemical use instead for pest control has become a hot topic in order to reduce pest density to tolerable levels and minimize the damage caused. For instance, biological control methods by periodically releasing infective pests or their natural enemies are often taken due to their advantage in the aspects of self-sustainable mechanism, lower environmental impact, and cost effectiveness.

Recently, some biocontrol models on pest management described by impulsive differential equation were proposed and the dynamics such as stability, permanence, periodicity, and bifurcation are deeply investigated (see also, e.g., [212]). In [5], an impulsive system to model the process of periodic releasing natural enemies and harvesting pest at different fixed time for pest control is considered, and the sufficient conditions on the existence and global stability of the periodic solution are derived for the given model. Georgescu et al. [6, 7] construct an integrated pest management model which relies on the simultaneous periodic release of infective pest individuals and of natural predators with age structure and obtain some sufficient conditions on the local and global stability, permanence, and bifurcation of the systems. However, most of the existing models on pest management scarcely take into account the factor on the relation between pest and its food (e.g., crop). In fact, farmers may harvest crops several times in process of its growth, which should cause a great impact on the density of the pest.

Motived by the above discussion, we construct a model of pest control by periodically releasing infective pests, immature and mature natural enemies, and harvesting pests and crops. To account for the discontinuity of release and harvest at different fixed moments, our model is based on impulsive differential equations. We analyze the dynamical behavior of the system by using the theory of impulsive differential equation introduced in [1315].

The rest of this paper is organized as follows. A pest management model with impulsive releasing and harvesting is introduced in Section 2 and some useful preliminaries are given in Section 3. Section 4 deals with stability and permanence analysis of system. In this section, two sufficient conditions are deduced including the locally and globally asymptotical stability of the susceptible pest-eradication period solution, the permanence of system is also discussed. A simple example and conclusions are given in Section 5.

2. Model Description

In the following, to establish our pest management model, we rely on the following biological assumptions. The pest population is divided into two classes, the susceptible and infective. The infective pests neither recover nor reproduce and infective pests cannot damage crops. The disease is transmitted from infective pests to susceptible pests and does not propagate to predators. In the absence of susceptible pests, the crops have a logistic growth rate with intrinsic birth rate and carrying capacity . The predators (natural enemies) have an age structure, that is, immature and mature. Only the mature predators have the ability to feed on susceptible pests, but do not prey on infective pests and crops. The functional response of the susceptible pest is described by the abstract function , the functional response of the mature predator is described by the abstract function , and the infection rate is described by the abstract function , where , , and satisfy certain assumptions outlined below.

On the basis of the above assumptions, we establish the following impulsively controlled system: where represents the density of the crop at time , represents the density of the susceptible pest at time , represents the density of the infective pest at time , and represent the density of the immature and mature predator at time , respectively; is the logistic intrinsic growth rate of the crop in the absence of the susceptible pest, is its carrying capacity; , represent the conversion rate at which ingested preys in excess of what is needed for maintenance is translated into predator population increase; is the rate at which the immature predators become the mature predators. , , , are the death rates of the susceptible pest population, infective pest population, and of the immature and mature predator population, respectively; , , , , ; is the period of the impulsive effect; is the harvesting rate of crop population; , , , denote the transfer rate of susceptible pest population, infective pest population, immature and mature predator population at every impulsive period , respectively; , , represents the amount of infective pests, immature and mature predators, respectively, which are released at every impulsive period , respectively; Also, , , , here , and for all .

Some familiar examples of functions in the biological literature include , with ; , with ; , with , where functions and are known as Holling type functional responses (see, [1626]), and belongs to Ivlev type functional responses (see, [2730]).

3. Preliminaries

In this section, we will give some definitions and lemmas, which will be useful for our main results. Let and . Denote   the map defined by the right hand of the first five equations in system (1). Let , then if (1) is continuous in , and for each , and exist. (2) is locally Lipschitzian .

Definition 1. Letting , one defines the upper right derivative of with respect to the impulsive differential system (1) at and by

Definition 2. The system (1) is said to be permanent if there are positive constants and a finite time such that all solutions of (1) with initial values , , , , , , , , , hold for all , where and   are independent of initial value, may depend on initial value.

Remark 3. The global existence and uniqueness of system (1) is guaranteed by the smoothness properties of (for details, see [13, 14]).

Lemma 4 (see [15]). Let satisfy , and assume that where is continuous in and , for each , the limit and exists. is quasimonotone nondecreasing in . is nondecreasing for all . Let be the maximal   solution of the following impulsive differential equation on :
Then for any solution of the system (3), ≤  (≥) implies that for all .

Lemma 5 (see [13, 15]). Consider the following system: where and , and are constants. Suppose that the sequence satisfies , with ; and is left-continuous at .
Then, for ,

Lemma 6. There exists a constant , such that , , , , for each solution of (1) with large enough.

Proof. Since ,  then , and , so for large enough. Let us define by and denote . Then, it is obvious that Since the right-hand side (7) is bounded from above by , it follows that When and , it is easy to obtain that Then, by Lemma 5, we can obtain that where . So it follows that is uniformly bounded on . The proof is completed.

Lemma 7 (see [31]). Let one consider the following impulsive control subsystem:
Suppose . Then one has the following results. (1)If , then the trivial periodic solution of system (11) is locally asymptotically stable. (2)If , then the system (11) has a unique positive periodic solution , which is globally asymptotically stable, where

Remark 8. From Lemma 7, we have if , then for all ; if , , then the periodic solution can be rewritten in the form

Lemma 9. Let one consider the following impulsive control subsystem: where is a -periodic function. are the positive real constants and . Then system (14) has a unique T-periodic solution , and for each solution of (14), as , where

Proof. First, it is easy to obtain that Since the T-periodicity requirement, we have By (17), we can obtain that So, we will obtain the T-periodic solution of (14): Let . Substituting into (14), we have Then, , as . The proof is completed.

4. Main Results

4.1. Local and Global Stability

In this section, we will study the existence and stability of the system (1) susceptible pest-eradication periodic solution . To this purpose, it is seen first that when , system (1) can be rewritten in the form which describes the dynamics of system (1) in the absence of the susceptible pest population. So, when , we can calculate the T-periodic solution of (21) by Lemmas 7 and 9. It is seen that where To discuss the locally asymptotical stability of the susceptible pest-eradication periodic solution, we now introduce the Floquet theory for a linear impulsive control system: under the following conditions: H1: and for . H2:,  , for , and denotes the real identity matrix. H3: There is a such that ,   for .

Let be a fundamental matrix of (29), then there is a unique reversible matrix such that for all , which is called the monodromy matrix of (29) corresponding to . All monodromy matrices of (29) are similar and they have the same eigenvalues , which are called the Floquet multipliers of (29).

Lemma 10 (see [13] (Floquet theory)). Let the conditions H1–H3 hold. Then system (29) have the following properties (1)stable if and only if all Floquet multipliers of (29) satisfy and moreover, to those for which , there correspond simple elementary divisors; (2)asymptotically stable if and only if all Floquet multipliers of (29) satisfy ; (3)unstable if there is a Floquet multipliers of (29) such that .

In the following, we present two main results with the locally and globally asymptotical stability of the susceptible pest-eradication periodic solution , , , , .

Theorem 11. If then the susceptible pest-eradication periodic solution of system (1) is locally asymptotically stable.

Proof. Let be any solution of system (1). We define error . The linearized system of (1) at is Let be the fundamental matrix of (31), then satisfies Then, a fundamental matrix of (31) iswhere The resetting impulsive condition of (31) becomes Then, it is easy to obtain all eigenvalues of We have , , , and . Since , so . By the condition (30), we have . Therefore, according to Lemma 10, the susceptible pest-eradication periodic solution of system (1) is locally asymptotically stable. The proof is completed.

Theorem 12. If where is an ultimate boundedness constant for S, then the susceptible pest-eradication periodic solution of system (1) is globally asymptotically stable.

Proof. Since we can choose an small enough such that where is defined in the following. According to system (1), we have From the first equation of system (40), we obtain the following comparison system: By Lemma 7, system (41) has a positive periodic solution , and for any solution of (41), as large enough, where . Then, according to Lemmas 4 and 7, there exists a positive constant such that for all Let us define and , where , . Then, we have Then, the multicomparison system of (43) is where , and .
By Lemma 9, it is easy to obtain a periodic solution of system (45). Then, according to Lemmas 4 and 9, one may find such that for all From the fourth equation of system (40), we have , by Lemmas 4 and 9, there exists such that for all where Therefore, for . Let and . Integrating (50) on , we have Then for . Since , we can easily get , as . In the following, we prove , as . Give small enough , there must exist such that , for . Then, we have Analyzing (52) with similarity as (40), there exists such that for all where Letting , we have . Together with (42), (46), (47), and (53), we get as . Therefore, the susceptible pest-eradication periodic solution , , , , is globally attractive. Since (37) implies (30), it follows from Theorem 11 that , , , is locally asymptotically stable. So, the susceptible pest-eradication periodic solution of system (1) is globally asymptotically stable. The proof is completed.

4.2. Permanence

Next, we will discuss the permanence of system (1). In order to facilitate discussion, we give one lemma.

Lemma 13. There exists a constant , such that   for each solution of (1) with large enough.

Proof . First, we discuss . Since , by the first equation of system (1), we have Then, we obtain the following comparison system: Letting and , by Lemma 7, the system (56) has a positive periodic solution , and for any solution of (56), as large enough, where According to Lemmas 4 and 7, one may find such that for . Since , so for . Next, we will discuss the rest of parts.
From (46) and (47), we know that there exists such that , , and for all . By (22), (23), and (48), we have , , and , where . Let , then for . The proof is completed.

Theorem 14. If then system (1) is permanent.

Proof. By Lemmas 6 and 13, we have already known that there exist two constants , such that and for large enough. Thus, we only need to find such that for large enough. We will do this in the following two steps.
Step  1. Let and small enough, so that and where We shall prove that one cannot have for all , otherwise Analyzing (61) with similarity as (40), it is easy to obtain that there exists a positive constant , such that for . Therefore, for . Let and . Integrating (62) on , we have Then as , which is a contradiction. So there exists a such that .
Step  2. If for all , then Our purpose is obtained. If not, let . Then for and . In this step, we consider two possible cases for .
Case  1. . Then . Select such that and , where . Let , then we have the claim: there exists such that . If the claim is false, we will get a contradiction in the following.
According to Step 1, we have for . Then, we have for . As in Step 1, we have
Since and , we have for . Integrating (66) on , we have Thus, by (65) and (67), we have , which is a contradiction. Let , then for and . So, for .
Case  2 . Suppose that .   for and . There are two possible cases for .
Case  2a. If for all , similar to Case 1, we can prove there exists a such that . Let , then for and . So, for all .
Case  2b. If there exists a such that . Let , then for and . So, for all .
Since for some , in both cases a similar discussion can be continued. The proof is completed.

5. Numerical Simulations and Conclusions

In this section, we will give an example and its simulations to show the efficiency of the criteria derived in Section 4.

In system (1), let ,  , and , . Namely, describes an Holling type-I functional response of the pest, describes a Ivlev-type functional response of the pest's natural predator. Therefore, we consider the pest management model with impulsive releasing and harvesting at two different fixed moments: So, by (22), (23), and (25), we have where Then, by Theorems 11 and 14, we have the following. If , then the susceptible pest-eradication periodic solution of system (68) is locally asymptotically stable. If , then the susceptible pest-eradication periodic solution of system (68) is globally asymptotically stable, where is defined in Lemma 6. If , then system (68) is permanent.

In the following, we analyze the locally asymptotical stability of the susceptible pest-eradication periodic solution and permanence of system (68).

Assume that , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Obviously, the condition of (T1) is satisfied, then the susceptible pest-eradication periodic solution of system (68) is locally asymptotically stable, which can be seen from the numerical simulation in Figures 1 and 2.

Assume that , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Obviously, the condition of (T3) is satisfied. Then, system (68) is permanent, which can also be seen from Figures 3 and 4.

From results of the numerical simulation, we know that there exists an impulsive harvesting(or releasing) periodic threshold , which satisfies . If and the other parameters are fixed (, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .), then the susceptible pest-eradication periodic solution of system (68) is locally asymptotically stable. If and the other parameters are fixed (, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ), then system (68) is permanent. The same discussion can be applied to other parameters.

In this paper, we proposed a pest management model with impulsive releasing (periodic infective pests, immature and mature natural enemies releasing) and harvesting (periodic crops harvesting) at two different fixed moments. By means of Floquet theory and multicomparison results for impulsive differential equations, two sufficient conditions ensuring the locally and globally asymptotical stability of the susceptible pest-eradication period solution and permanence of the system are derived.

Acknowledgments

This work is supported partially by National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant no. 10971240 and no. 61004042, Key Project of Chinese Education Ministry under Grant no. 212138, Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing under Grant CQ CSTC 2011BB0117, and Foundation of Science and Technology Project of Chongqing Education Commission under Grant KJ120630.