PERSISTENCE OF THE WEAKER SPECIES IN A NON-HOMOGENEOUS COMPETITIVE SYSTEM: EXACT RESULT THROUGH A QUANTUM MECHANICAL ANALOGY

M. N. KUPERMAN; B. VON HAEFTEN; H. S. WIO

BULLETIN OF MATHEMATICAL BIOLOGY

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 1996 vol. 58 p. 1001 - 1018

0092-8240

We have studied an ecological system of two species, which we denote strong and weak,respectively, that compete for a single food resource. This system is modelled as a threecomponent reaction-diffusion process. In the presence of a solitary pulse of increasedresources, the weaker competitor can diffuse toward this surplus, gaining a competitiveadvantage and hence persisting in contraposition with the classical Lotka-Volterra result.An exact analytical solution has been found through a quantum mechanical analogy. Astability analysis of this solution against changes in different parameters has been carriedout.