Relaxation oscillations in spruce–budworm interactions

We review and complement the study of the mathematical properties of the predator–prey dynamical system for spruce–budworm interactions studied in Ludwig et al. [D. Ludwig, D. Jones, C.S. Holling, Qualitative analysis of insect outbreak systems: the spruce budworm and forest, Journal of Animal Ecology 47 (1978), 315–332]. We use the singular perturbation method to identify parameter regimes which permit relaxation oscillations. The leading order contribution to the period of these oscillations is computed by means of this method and compared with the outcome of direct numerical simulations.