An ecological system depending on ages and diffusion (Q1118552)

The author's model comprises individuals belonging to one of n species which diffuse, reproduce and die in the real line. Individual diffusion constants depend only on their type and their location-dependent birth dynamics follow the usual Lotka von-Foerster scheme. The novel feature of this paper is the prescription of functions \(K_{ij}(a,\alpha)\) which measure the intensity of an unspecified influence of an age \(\alpha\) j- type individual on an age a i-type. If \(u_ j(t,\alpha,x)\) is the population density at x of age \(\alpha\) j-types at time t then \[ \Phi_ i(t,a,x,\underline u)=\int^{\infty}_{0}\sum^{n}_{j=1}K_{ij}(a,\alpha)u_ j(t,\alpha,x) d\alpha \] is the total influence of all species on an age a i-type individual located at x at time t. The death rate for species i in its reaction-diffusion equation is allowed to depend on t,a,x and \({\underline \Phi}{}_ i(\cdot).\) The author prescribes several ecologically interpretable technical conditions and uses them to prove that his system of equations admits a unique and positive solution. The kernel of his proofs is an application of fixed point theorems. He considers the specific case of one predator which consumes one prey species. Here the species influences are predator population growth from prey consumption and prey population suppression by the predators. These follow Lotka-Volterra dynamics. The author proves, subject to several conditions, the existence of a stable steady state solution.