Global Continuation of Periodic Oscillations to a Diapause Rhythm.

We consider a scalar delay differential equation x ˙ (t) = - d x (t) + f ((1 - α) ρ x (t - τ) + α ρ x (t - 2 τ)) with an instant mortality rate d > 0 , the nonlinear Rick reproductive function f, a survival rate during all development stages ρ , and a proportion constant α ∈ [ 0 , 1 ] with which population undergoes a diapause development. We consider global continuation of a branch of periodic solutions locally generated through the Hopf bifurcation mechanism, and we establish the existence of periodic solutions with periods within (3 τ , 6 τ) for a wide range of parameter values. We show this existence of periodic solutions not only for the delay τ near the first critical value τ ∗ when a local Hopf bifurcation takes place near the positive equilibrium, but for all τ > τ ∗ . We obtain this (global) existence of periodic solutions by using the equivalent-degree based global Hopf bifurcation theory, coupled with an application of the Li–Muldowney technique to rule out periodic solutions with period 3 τ . We conduct some numerical simulations to illustrate that this global continuation is completely due to the diapause-delay since solutions of the delay differential equation with only normal development delay in the given biologically realistic range all converge to the positive equilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]