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Updated: Jun 20, 2026

Resurrection of Dormant Daphnia magna: Protocol and Applications
Published on: January 19, 2018
Daphnia revisited: local stability and bifurcation theory for physiologically structured population models explained
Odo Diekmann1, Mats Gyllenberg2, J A J Metz2,3,4
1Department of Mathematics, University of Utrecht, P. O. Box 80010, 3508 TA, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
We consider the interaction between a general size-structured consumer population and an unstructured resource. We show that stability properties and bifurcation phenomena can be understood in terms of solutions of a system of two delay equations (a renewal equation for the consumer population birth rate coupled to a delay differential equation for the resource concentration). As many results for such systems are available (Diekmann et al. in SIAM J Math Anal 39:1023-1069, 2007), we can draw rigorous conclusions concerning dynamical behaviour from an analysis of a characteristic equation. We derive the characteristic equation for a fairly general class of population models, including those based on the Kooijman-Metz Daphnia model (Kooijman and Metz in Ecotox Env Saf 8:254-274, 1984; de Roos et al. in J Math Biol 28:609-643, 1990) and a model introduced by Gurney-Nisbet (Theor Popul Biol 28:150-180, 1985) and Jones et al. (J Math Anal Appl 135:354-368, 1988), and next obtain various ecological insights by analytical or numerical studies of special cases.
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