In this paper, we consider a competition model between $n$ species in a chemostat including
both monotone and non-monotone growth functions, distinct removal rates and variable yields.
We show that only the species with the lowest break-even concentration survives, provided that additional technical
conditions on the growth functions and yields are satisfied.
We construct a Lyapunov function which reduces to the Lyapunov function used by
S. B. Hsu [SIAM J. Appl. Math., 34 (1978), pp. 760-763] in the Monod case when the growth
functions are of Michaelis-Menten type and the yields are constant.
Various applications are given including linear, quadratic and cubic yields.
Citation: Tewfik Sari, Frederic Mazenc. Global dynamics of the chemostat with different removal rates and variable yields[J]. Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering, 2011, 8(3): 827-840. doi: 10.3934/mbe.2011.8.827
Abstract
In this paper, we consider a competition model between $n$ species in a chemostat including
both monotone and non-monotone growth functions, distinct removal rates and variable yields.
We show that only the species with the lowest break-even concentration survives, provided that additional technical
conditions on the growth functions and yields are satisfied.
We construct a Lyapunov function which reduces to the Lyapunov function used by
S. B. Hsu [SIAM J. Appl. Math., 34 (1978), pp. 760-763] in the Monod case when the growth
functions are of Michaelis-Menten type and the yields are constant.
Various applications are given including linear, quadratic and cubic yields.