The effect of diffusion on the permanence of Smith population model in a polluted patch (Q1599229)

Here, a system of ODEs is studied that describes a two-patch environment containing populations with logistic type of growth and linked with cross-patch diffusion; the growth rate in the first patch is reduced by a time-dependent toxicant concentration, whose level (asymptotically) reaches a given limit. The authors give conditions on the limiting concentration of the pollutant and other system parameters under which the entire population goes extinct or is permanent; among other results, they show that diffusion can maintain a source-sink structure in their model.