Existence for a diffusing population with discrete returns to the interior (Q5934261)

The author studies a one-dimensional steady-state diffusion model for a biological population in which individuals collected either throughout the domain or from one endpoint of the domain are returned to the population at a discrete set of locations. Precisely, the modeling equations are \[ u''(x)= f(x,u(x))+\left(\sum_{i=1}^n \kappa_i \delta_{\beta_i}(x)\right) g\left(\int_{0}^{1} \alpha(s)u(s)ds\right),\quad x\in(0,1), \] in the former case, and \[ u''(x)= f(x,u(x))+\left(\sum_{i=1}^n \kappa_i \delta_{\beta_i}(x)\right) g\left(u'(0)\right),\quad x\in(0,1), \] in the latter case, where \(g\) specifies the rate of return and \(f\) is the usual net population growth term. Imposing boundary conditions of Dirichlet type at \(x=0\) and \(x=1,\) the author applies the topological transversality theorem in order to show the existence of a positive solution provided \(g\) does not increase too rapidly.