Delay differential equations as a tool for mathematical modelling of population dynamic

Abstract

The manuscript constitutes a lecture from a course “Mathematical modelling of biological processes”, adapted to the format of the journal paper. This course of lectures is held by one of authors in Ugra State University. Delay differential equations are widely used in different ecological and biological problems. It has to do with the fact that delay differential equations are able to take into account that different biological processes depend not only on the state of the system at the moment but on the state of the system in previous moments too. The most popular case of using delay differential equations in biology is modelling in population ecology (including the modelling of several interacting populations dynamic, for example, in predator-prey system). Also delay differential equations are considered in demography, immunology, epidemiology, molecular biology (to provide mathematical description of regulatory mechanisms in a cell functioning and division), physiology as well as for modelling certain important production processes (for example, in agriculture). In the beginning of the paper as introduction some basic concepts of differential difference equation theory (delay differential equations are specific type of differential difference equations) is considered and their classification is presented. Then it is discussed in more detail how such an important equations of population dynamic as Maltus equation and logistic (Verhulst-Pearl) equation are transformed into corresponsive delay differential equations – Goudriaan-Roermund and Hutchinson. Then several discussion questions on using of a delay differential equations in biological models are considered. It is noted that in a certain cases using of a delay differential equations lead to an incorrect behavior from the point of view of common sense. Namely solution of Goudriaan-Roermund equation with harvesting, stopped when all species were harvested, shows that spontaneous generation takes place in the system. This incorrect interpretation has to do with the fact that delay differential equations are used to simplify considered models (that are usually are systems of ordinary differential equations). Using of integro-differential equations could be more appropriate because in these equations background could be taken into account in a more natural way. It is shown that Hutchinson equation can be obtained by simplification of Volterra integral equation with a help of Diraq delta function. Finally, a few questions of analytical and numerical solution of delay differential equations are discussed.