On a system of reaction-diffusion equations arising from competition with internal storage in an unstirred chemostat

In this paper we study a system of reaction-diffusion equations arising from competition of two microbial populations for a single-limited nutrient with internal storage in an unstirred chemostat. The conservation principle is used to reduce the dimension of the system by eliminating the equation for the nutrient. The reduced system (limiting system) generates a strongly monotone dynamical system in its feasible domain under a partial order. We construct suitable upper, lower solutions to establish the existence of positive steady-state solutions. Given the parameters of the reduced system, we answer the basic questions as to which species survives and which does not in the spatial environment and determine the global behaviors. The primary conclusion is that the survival of species depends on species's intrinsic biological characteristics, the external environment forces and the principal eigenvalues of some scalar partial differential equations. We also lift the dynamics of the limiting system to the full system.     

A sufficient condition for type I blowup in a parabolic-elliptic system

This paper is concerned with blowup of positive solutions to a Cauchy problem for a parabolic-elliptic system

     

Advection-mediated competition in general environments

We consider a reaction–diffusion–advection system of two competing species with one of the species dispersing by random diffusion as well as a biased movement upward along resource gradient, while the other species by random diffusion only. It has been shown that, under some non-degeneracy conditions on the environment function, the two species always coexist when the advection is strong. In this paper, we show that for general smooth environment function, in contrast to what is known, there can be competitive exclusion when the advection is strong, and, we give a sharp criterion for coexistence that includes all previously considered cases. Moreover, when the domain is one-dimensional, we derive in the strong advection limit a system of two equations defined on different domains. Uniqueness of steady states of this non-standard system is obtained when one of the diffusion rates is large.     

Realization of prescribed patterns in the competition model

We demonstrate that for any prescribed set of finitely many disjoint closed subdomains D₁,…,D_m of a given spatial domain Ω in R^N, if d₁,d₂,a₁,a₂,c,d,e are positive continuous functions on Ω and b(x) is identically zero on D?D₁∪?∪D_m and positive in the rest of Ω, then for suitable choices of the parameters λ, μ and all small ε>0, the competition model

     

Turing patterns of a strongly coupled predator-prey system with diffusion effects

The main purpose of this work is to investigate the effects of cross-diffusion in a strongly coupled predator-prey system. By a linear stability analysis we find the conditions which allow a homogeneous steady state (stable for the kinetics) to become unstable through a Turing mechanism. In particular, it is shown that Turing instability of the reaction-diffusion system can disappear due to the presence of the cross-diffusion, which implies that the cross-diffusion induced stability can be regarded as the cross-stability of the corresponding reaction-diffusion system. Furthermore, we consider the existence and non-existence results concerning non-constant positive steady states (patterns) of the system. We demonstrate that cross-diffusion can create non-constant positive steady-state solutions. These results exhibit interesting and very different roles of the cross-diffusion in the formation and the disappearance of the Turing instability.     

Non-existence of non-constant positive steady states of two Holling type-II predator-prey systems: Strong interaction case

We prove the non-existence of non-constant positive steady state solutions of two reaction-diffusion predator-prey models with Holling type-II functional response when the interaction between the predator and the prey is strong. The result implies that the global bifurcating branches of steady state solutions are bounded loops.     

Blowup in infinite time of radial solutions for a parabolic–elliptic system in high-dimensional Euclidean spaces

We consider radial solutions blowing up in infinite time to a parabolic–elliptic system in N$N$-dimensional Euclidean space. The system was introduced to describe the gravitational interaction of particles. In the case where N≥2$N\ge 2$, we can find positive and radial solutions blowing up in finite time. In the present paper, in the case where N≥11$N\ge 11$, we find positive and radial solutions blowing up in infinite time and investigate those blowup speeds, by using the so-called asymptotic matched expansion techniques and parabolic regularity.     

Degenerate KAM theory for partial differential equations

This paper deals with degenerate KAM theory for lower dimensional elliptic tori of infinite dimensional Hamiltonian systems, depending on one parameter only. We assume that the linear frequencies are analytic functions of the parameter, satisfy a weak non-degeneracy condition of Rüssmann type and an asymptotic behavior. An application to nonlinear wave equations is given.     

Global existence of solutions to a parabolic-parabolic system for chemotaxis with weak degradation

We study the global existence of solutions to a parabolic-parabolic system for chemotaxis with a logistic source in a two-dimensional domain, where the degradation order of the logistic source is weaker than quadratic. We introduce nonlinear production of a chemoattractant, and show the global existence of solutions under certain relations between the degradation and production orders.     

Asymptotic profiles of the positive steady state for an SIS epidemic reaction-diffusion model. Part I

To capture the impact of spatial heterogeneity of environment and movement of individuals on the persistence and extinction of a disease, Allen et al. in [L.J.S. Allen, B.M. Bolker, Y. Lou, A.L. Nevai, Asymptotic profiles of the steady states for an SIS epidemic reaction-diffusion model, Discrete Contin. Dyn. Syst. Ser. A 21 (1) (2008) 1-20] proposed a spatial SIS (susceptible-infected-susceptible) reaction-diffusion model, and studied the existence, uniqueness and particularly the asymptotic behavior of the endemic equilibrium as the diffusion rate of the susceptible individuals goes to zero in the case where a so-called low-risk subhabitat is created. In this work, we shall provide further understanding of the impacts of large and small diffusion rates of the susceptible and infected population on the persistence and extinction of the disease, which leads us to determine the asymptotic behaviors of the endemic equilibrium when the diffusion rate of either the susceptible or infected population approaches to infinity or zero in the remaining cases. Consequently, our results reveal that, in order to eliminate the infected population at least in low-risk area, it is necessary that one will have to create a low-risk subhabitat and reduce at least one of the diffusion rates to zero. In this case, our results also show that different strategies of controlling the diffusion rates of individuals may lead to very different spatial distributions of the population; moreover, once the spatial environment is modified to include a low-risk subhabitat, the optimal strategy of eradicating the epidemic disease is to restrict the diffusion rate of the susceptible individuals rather than that of the infected ones.     

Laplace asymptotics for reaction-diffusion equations

Summary We obtain sharp (i.e. non logarithmic) asymptotics for the solution of non homogeneous Kolmogorov-Petrovski-Piskunov equation depending on a small parameter , for points ahead of the Freidlin-KPP front.     

Turing pattern of the Oregonator model

The Oregonator model is the mathematical dynamics which describes the Field-Körös-Noyes mechanics of the famous Belousov-Zhabotinskii? reaction. In this work, we establish some fundamental analytic properties of this dynamics and its corresponding steady state. Under various conditions on the parameters and the size of the reactor, we examine the existence and non-existence of non-constant steady states. In particular, for some properly chosen parameter ranges, we prove the occurrence of the Turing pattern generated by this Oregonator model. Our results exhibit interesting and very different roles of the diffusion rates and the reactor in the formation of the Turing pattern. Our mathematical analysis mainly relies on a priori estimates and the topological degree argument.     

Weak solutions for nonlocal boundary value problems with low regularity data

This paper concerns the existence and uniqueness of weak solutions for elliptic and parabolic equations under nonlocal boundary conditions, based on maximal regularity. It also gives the positivity of solutions which can be used in monotone iteration methods. As an application, the results are used to discuss some specific nonlocal problems.     

Persistence of wavefronts in delayed nonlocal reaction-diffusion equations

We develop a perturbation argument based on existing results on asymptotic autonomous systems and the Fredholm alternative theory that yields the persistence of traveling wavefronts for reaction-diffusion equations with nonlocal and delayed nonlinearities, when the time lag is relatively small. This persistence result holds when the nonlinearity of the corresponding ordinary reaction-diffusion system is either monostable or bistable. We then illustrate this general result using five different models from population biology, epidemiology and bio-reactors.     

Viscosity method for homogenization of parabolic nonlinear equations in perforated domains

In this paper, we develop a viscosity method for homogenization of Nonlinear Parabolic Equations constrained by highly oscillating obstacles or Dirichlet data in perforated domains. The Dirichlet data on the perforated domain can be considered as a constraint or an obstacle. Homogenization of nonlinear eigen value problems has been also considered to control the degeneracy of the porous medium equation in perforated domains. For the simplicity, we consider obstacles that consist of cylindrical columns distributed periodically and perforated domains with punctured balls. If the decay rate of the capacity of columns or the capacity of punctured ball is too high or too small, the limit of u? will converge to trivial solutions. The critical decay rates of having nontrivial solution are obtained with the construction of barriers. We also show the limit of u? satisfies a homogenized equation with a term showing the effect of the highly oscillating obstacles or perforated domain in viscosity sense.     

A diffusive competition model with a protection zone

This paper is concerned with a two species diffusive competition model with a protection zone for the weak competitor. Our mathematical results imply that when the protection zone is above a certain critical patch size determined by the birth rate of the weak competitor, the weak species almost always survives, but it cannot survive when the protection zone is below the critical size and its competitor is strong enough. While this is the main feature of the model, the actual dynamical behavior of the reaction-diffusion system is more complicated. The key to reveal the main feature of the system lies in a detailed analysis of the attracting regions of its steady-state solutions. Our mathematical analysis shows that, compared with the predator-prey model discussed in [Yihong Du, Junping Shi, A diffusive predator-prey model with a protect zone, J. Differential Equations 226 (2006) 63-91], the protection zone has some essentially different effects on the fine dynamics of the competition model.     

Uniqueness and decay estimates for a class of parabolic partial differential equations with hysteresis and convection

We deal in detail with the question of existence, uniqueness and asymptotic behaviour of solutions to a parabolic equation with hysteresis and convection. This equation is part of a model system which describes the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flow of a conducting fluid between two ferromagnetic plates. The result of this paper complements the content of a previous paper of the first author, where existence of the solution has been proved under fairly general assumptions on the hysteresis operator and the uniqueness was only obtained for a restricted class of hysteresis operators.     

A diffusive predator-prey model in heterogeneous environment

In this paper, we demonstrate some special behavior of steady-state solutions to a predator-prey model due to the introduction of spatial heterogeneity. We show that positive steady-state solutions with certain prescribed spatial patterns can be obtained when the spatial environment is designed suitably. Moreover, we observe some essential differences of the behavior of our model from that of the classical Lotka-Volterra model that seem to arise only in the heterogeneous case.