A delayed epidemic model with stage-structure and pulses for pest management strategy

From a biological pest management standpoint, epidemic diseases models have become important tools in control of pest populations. This paper deals with an impulsive delay epidemic disease model with stage-structure and a general form of the incidence rate concerning pest control strategy, in which the pest population is subdivided into three subgroups: pest eggs, susceptible pests, infectious pests that do not attack crops. Using the discrete dynamical system determined by the stroboscopic map, we obtain the exact periodic susceptible pest-eradication solution of the system and observe that the susceptible pest-eradication periodic solution is globally attractive, provided that the amount of infective pests released periodically is larger than some critical value. When the amount of infective pests released is less than another critical value, the system is shown to be permanent, which implies that the trivial susceptible pest-eradication solution loses its attractivity. Our results indicate that besides the release amount of infective pests, the incidence rate, time delay and impulsive period can have great effects on the dynamics of our system.