Population dynamics of plateau pika under lethal control and contraception control

Abstract

The overabundance of plateau pika brings a great damage to the alpine meadow. Rodenticide and sterilant have been used to control this mammalian pest. In this article, we proposed models to incorporate these controls and the seasonal cycle of breeding and non-breeding. It is shown that when the basic reproduction number is less than 1 then the trivial equilibrium is globally asymptotically stable; if the basic reproduction number is greater than 1 then the trivial equilibrium is unstable and there is a positive equilibrium which attracts all positive solutions. Then we study the effects of controls on the existence of the positive equilibrium and the population size. These theoretical results are supported by numerical simulations. We also propose the possible strategies to be implemented in practice. © 2012 Liu et al.