Two-phase Age-Structured Model of Solitarious and Gregarious Locust Population Dynamics

TL;DR

This paper develops a two-phase age-structured model for desert locusts that captures phase transitions and outbreak dynamics, providing insights into stability conditions and simulating population behaviors.

Contribution

It introduces a novel two-phase age-structured model incorporating variable egg incubation and phase transitions, advancing understanding of locust outbreak mechanisms.

Findings

Conditions for stability of locust populations derived.

Simulation reproduces documented outbreak behaviors.

Phase transition dynamics are characterized mathematically.

Abstract

In this paper we study a nonlinear age structured model of locust population dynamics with variable time of egg incubation that describes the phase polyphenism and behaviour of desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria. The analysis of asymptotical stability of trivial and nontrivial equilibriums of autonomous system allows us to derive the conditions and understand the particularities of bidirectional phase transitions between solitarious and gregarious. Simulation of locust population dynamics with different conditions of phase transitions for autonomous and non-autonomous dynamical systems of our two phase age-structured competitive model with time delay exhibits the features of behaviour of documented outbreak dynamics of Schistocerca gregaria.