Dynamics of phytoplankton species competition for light and nutrient with recycling in a water column (Q2033439)

In this paper, the authors study a nonlocal system of reaction-diffusion-advection equations describing the competition of two phytoplankton species for a limiting nutrient and light in a water column, with recyclation of dead phytoplankton as a resource for growth. The authors first study a single population model and determine the threshold dynamics for this model. Using persistence theory, the authors show that the two-species population system has a coexistence steady state and the system is uniformly persistent if the trivial steady state and the two global attractors on the boundary are all weak repellers. The biological interpretation of the main theorem is that coexistence of two phytoplankton species along vertical resources can occur in the model if each of the two species can invade the habitat dominated by the other.