A Comparison of the Trojan Y Chromosome Strategy to Harvesting Models for Eradication of Non-Native Species

TL;DR

This paper compares the Trojan Y Chromosome Strategy with harvesting models for eradicating non-native species, analyzing their stability, effectiveness, and optimal control, and finds that harvesting strategies can outperform TYC in certain scenarios.

Contribution

It introduces a hybrid harvesting model that mirrors TYC and compares its effectiveness with pure harvesting and TYC strategies using dynamic and optimal control analyses.

Findings

Harvesting strategies can be more effective than TYC in controlling invasive species.

Hybrid harvesting models show promising results similar to TYC.

Stability and bifurcation analyses inform optimal control approaches.

Abstract

The Trojan Y Chromosome Strategy (TYC) is a promising eradication method for biological control of non-native species. The strategy works by manipulating the sex ratio of a population through the introduction of \textit{supermales} that guarantee male offspring. In the current manuscript, we compare the TYC method with a pure harvesting strategy. We also analyze a hybrid harvesting model that mirrors the TYC strategy. The dynamic analysis leads to results on stability, global boundedness of solutions and bifurcations of the model. Several conclusions about the different strategies are established via optimal control methods. In particular, the results affirm that either a pure harvesting or hybrid strategy may work better than the TYC method at controlling an invasive species population.