Diffusion-mediated permanence problem for a heterogeneous Lotka–Volterra competition model (Q4337370)

Consider the system of reaction-diffusion equations \[ (*)\quad u_t = d_1 \Delta_u + u( \Lambda (x) - A(x)u-B(x)v),\quad u_t = d_2 \Delta_v + v [M(x)- C(x)u-D(x)v], \] for \(x\) in a bounded domain \(\Omega\) under the assumptions that all coefficients are scalar \(L^\infty\)-functions satisfying \(A(x), D(x) \geq k >0, \;B(x), C(x) \geq 0, \;d_1\) and \(d_2\) are nonnegative numbers, and under homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions \((*)\) is an order preserving dynamical system. It is said to be permanent if there exists a compact global attractor within the interior of the positive cone. The system \((*)\) without diffusion is called a kinetic system. A main result of this paper says that the existence of globally asymptotically stable nontrivial steady states of kinetic systems implies some range of the diffusion coefficients such that \((*)\) exhibits stable coexistence of populations. The main technical tools to establish the results are monotone schemes, fixed point index, singular perturbation techniques, global continuation, singularity theory and global analysis of persistence curves.