The necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of periodic orbits in a Lotka-Volterra system

By extending Darboux method to three dimension, we present necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of periodic orbits in three species Lotka-Volterra systems with the same intrinsic growth rates. Therefore, all the published sufficient or necessary conditions for the existence of periodic orbits of the system are included in our results. Furthermore, we prove the stability of periodic orbits. Hopf bifurcation is shown for the emergence of periodic orbits and new phenomenon is presented: at critical values, each equilibrium are surrounded by either equilibria or periodic orbits. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.