Global stability in a structured population competition model with distributed maturation delay and harvesting

Abstract

This paper is concerned with a delay differential equation model for the interaction between two species, the adult members of which are in competition, with stage-structure and harvesting of the mature and immature members of each species. The maturation delay for each species is modelled as a distribution, to allow for the possibility that individuals may take a different amount of time to mature. General birth and death rate functions are used. We find that the dynamics of the model depends largely on the birth and death functions, which depend on the total number of adults. We study the dynamics of our model analytically and we present results on the positivity and boundedness of the solutions, and global stability results are established for each equilibrium.