  For strongly monotone dynamical systems, the dynamics alternative for smooth
discrete-time systems turns out to be a perfect analogy of the celebrated
Hirsch's limit-set dichotomy for continuous-time semiflows. In this paper, we
first present a sharpened dynamics alternative for $C^1$-smooth strongly
monotone discrete-time dissipative system $\{F_0^n\}_{n\in \mathbb{N}}$ (with
an attractor $A$), which concludes that there is a positive integer $m$ such
that any orbit is either manifestly unstable; or asymptotic to a linearly
stable cycle whose minimal period is bounded by $m$. Furthermore, we show the
$C^1$-robustness of the sharpened dynamics alternative, that is, for any
$C^1$-perturbed system $\{F_\epsilon^n\}_{n\in \mathbb{N}}$ ($F_\epsilon$ not
necessarily monotone), any orbit initiated nearby $A$ will admit the sharpened
dynamics alternative with the same $m$. The improved generic convergence to
cycles for the $C^1$-system $\{F_0^n\}_{n\in \mathbb{N}}$, as well as for the
perturbed system $\{F_\epsilon^n\}_{n\in \mathbb{N}}$, is thus obtained as
by-products of the sharpened dynamics alternative and its $C^1$-robustness. The
results are applied to nonlocal $C^1$-perturbations of a time-periodic
parabolic equations and give typical convergence to periodic solutions whose
minimal periods are uniformly bounded.

Dynamical Systems