Mathematical and Numerical Study of Volterra Functional Differential Equations for Grazing.pdfVIP

Mathematical and Numerical Study of Volterra Functional Differential Equations for Grazing Systems Christopher T.H. Baker and Arsalang Tang  Mathematics Dept., The University, Manchester M13 9PL (UK). Keywords Volterra equations, grazing models, infinite delay, numerics, stability. ABSTRACT One mission for numerical analysts is to study (and where appropriate to devise and/or to implement) numerical procedures for the treatment of mathematical models of real phenomena. This requires an involvement in the science and mathematical analysis of the modelling process, and informed by numerical calculations and numerical analysi s. The numerical processes should simulate the important features of the model, and a pri or task is to assess these features. In this paper we present a case study that illustrates this approach. We are concerned here with mathematical models of grass-herbivore systems with infinite delays which are motivated by the characteristic nature of prey-predator models. We consider paradigms for modelling grazing systems under realistic assumptions in- cluding the effects of delays, and consider, using linearized theory and Liapunov theory, the stability of steady-state positive solutions of each model. The analysis is illustrated by the use of numerical simulation. The models reflect the fact that, when prey is sufficiently abundant, the growth rate of predators is independent of the prey and, when predators are overpopulated, predatory effect is reduced. INTRODUCTION The modelling perspective It is well known that the famous Lotka–Volterra model for predator-prey interaction was originally defined in terms of ordinary differential equations. Later, Volterra indicated that in many cases, the response of the predator population to contact with the prey is delayed