Persistence in three-dimensional Lotka-Volterra systems (Q1095844)

An ecosystem is persistent if for any initial configuration, each component population which is initially present in the system is bounded away from zero in the long run. Using a recent dynamical system approach developed by the authors, J. Differ. Equations 63, 255-263 (1986; Zbl 0603.58033), we obtain a criterion for the persistence of three- dimensional Lotka-Volterra systems. Except for the case of ``intransitive'' competition, the criterion is easily computable.