Bifurcation and chaos in a Monod type food chain chemostat with pulsed input and washout (Q2482576)

The authors introduce and study a model of a Monod food chain chemostat with pulsed input and washout. They investigate the subsystem with substrate and prey and study the stability of the periodic solutions, which are the boundary periodic solutions of the system. The stability analysis of the boundary periodic solutions yields an invasion threshold. By use of standard techniques of bifurcation theory, they prove that above this threshold there are periodic oscillations in substrate, prey and predator. Simple cycles may give way to chaos in a cascade of period-doubling bifurcations.