Global dynamics of a two species competition model in open stream environments (Q1663173)

The population dynamics for a competitive Lotka-Volterra equation in a one-dimensional environment flowing river is studied. The authors consider the situation where the two species have both a different diffusion and a different advection rate. Boundary conditions modeling open river flow are imposed by a loss rate at the downstream end. Under the assumption that the downstream loss is small, that the species with stronger advection also has a greater downstream loss rate and that the species with the stronger advection experiences smaller diffusion it is shown that the species with larger advection will be always extinct while there may exist globally asymptotically stable steady states where the species with larger diffusion survives. On the other had, for a strong downstream loss the situation can change such that there exists a globally asymptotically stable steady state where only the species with larger advection is present. In the other case, where stronger advection also corresponds to stronger diffusion, the situation is more complicated. Depending on the ratio of the diffusion rates, the trivial steady state can be asymptotically stable, or there may be asymptotically stable semi-trivial steady states with only one surviving species. Moreover, there is a range of parameters where co-existence steady states may exist. The main ingredients of the proof are a careful study of the linear stability problem for the trivial and semi-trivial steady states and two non-existence results for co-existence steady states.