Competition between plasmid-bearing and plasmid-free organisms in a chemostat with nutrient recycling and an inhibitor (Q2506734)

This paper is concerned with the asymptotic behavior of solutions of a model for competition between plasmid-bearing and plasmid-free organisms in a chemostat with two distributed delays and an external inhibitor. The model can be regarded as the refinement of that one considered by \textit{Z. Lu} and \textit{K. P. Hadeler} [Math. Biosci. 148, 147--159 (1998; Zbl 0930.92029)]. The authors refine the model by the fact that the nutrient is partially recycled after the death of the biomass by bacterial decomposition and there is inter-specific competition between the plasmid-bearing and plasmid-free organisms as well as intra-specific competition within each population. Then, some mathematical results, including the boundedness of solutions, existence of nonnegative equilibrium, extinction of the organisms, uniform persistence and global attractivity, are carried out. Moreover, the corresponding ecological background of the mathematical result is discussed, too.