Global Bifurcation Analysis of a Population Model with Stage Structure and Beverton–Holt Saturation Function

Abstract

In the present paper, we perform a complete bifurcation analysis of a two-stage population model, in which the per capita birth rate and stage transition rate from juveniles to adults are density dependent and take the general Beverton–Holt functions. Our study reveals a rich bifurcation structure including codimension-one bifurcations such as saddle-node, Hopf, homoclinic bifurcations, and codimension-two bifurcations such as Bogdanov–Takens (BT), Bautin bifurcations, etc. Moreover, by employing the polynomial analysis and approximation techniques, the existences of equilibria, Hopf and BT bifurcations as well as the formulas for calculating their bifurcation sets have been provided. Finally, the complete bifurcation diagrams and associate phase portraits are obtained not only analytically but also confirmed and extended numerically.