Competition for two essential resources with internal storage and periodic input. (Q2629087)

In this paper, the authors study a mathematical model of two species with populations \(u_1(t)\) and \(u_2(t)\) at time \(t\) competing in a chemostat for two internally stored essential nutrients with concentration \(S^{(0)}(t)\) and \(R^{(0)}(t)\), added from an external reservoir by way of periodic forcing functions. The concentration of the limited resources in the chemostat at time \(t\) are \(S(t)\) and \(R(t)\). When \(S^{(0)}(t) \equiv S^{(0)}\) and \(R^{(0)}(t) \equiv R^{(0)}\), the model becomes an autonomous differential system and its dynamics has been studied in literature by linearising the system at the equilibrium points. But this method is not applicable to the model when \(S^{(0)}(t)\) and \(R^{(0)}(t)\) are non-constant periodic functions. So, instead of using linearisation, a single species case is systematically studied. Then, for the two species competition model, a sufficient condition is obtained for uniform persistence and the existence of a positive periodic solution.