The dynamics of an age structured predator-prey model with disturbing pulse and time delays

Many of the existing predator-prey models on stage structured populations are some ordinary differential equations (ODE) or models without a disturbing effect of human behavior. In reality, death of the juvenile during its immature stage and catching or poisoning for the prey or predator occur continuously. From this basic standpoint, we formulate a general and robust prey-dependent consumption predator-prey model with periodic harvesting (catching or poisoning) for the prey and stage structure for the predator with constant maturation time delay (through-stage time delay) and perform a systematic mathematical and ecological study. We show that the conditions for global attractivity of the 'predator-extinction' ('predator-eradication') periodic solution and permanence of the population of the model depend on time delay, so, we call it profitless. We also show that constant maturation time delay and impulsive catching or poisoning for the prey can bring great effects on the dynamics of system by numerical analysis. In this paper, the main feature is that we introduce time delay and pulse into the predator-prey (natural enemy-pest) model with age structure, exhibit a new modeling method which is applied to investigate impulsive delay differential equations, and give some reasonable suggestions for pest management. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.