The global attractor of a competitor-competitor-mutualist reaction-diffusion system with time delays (Q2643455)

Large time behavior of solutions of reaction-diffusion systems is of great concern in population dynamics, and since many such equations possess multiple equilibria, the determination of the time-dependent solution in relation to the steady-state solutions is delicate. Thus, the author investigates the asymptotic behavior (stability problem) of a special time-dependent solution of a three-species reaction-diffusion system in a bounded domain under Neumann boundary condition using the method of upper and lower solutions. The system governs the population densities of a competitor, a competitor-mutualist and a mutualist, including possible time delays in the reaction mechanism. Under a simple condition on the reaction rates, it is shown that the reaction-diffusion system has a unique constant positive steady-state solution, and for any nontrivial nonnegative initial function, the corresponding time-dependent solution converges (globally) to the positive equilibrium solution. Consequently, the trivial solution and all forms of semi-trivial solutions are unstable, and the results apply to systems without delays as well as to their corresponding ordinary differential counterparts with or without delay.