Analysis of a nutrient-phytoplankton model in the presence of viral infection

Abstract

In this paper, a system of reaction-diffusion equations arising in a nutrient-phytoplankton populations is investigated. The equations model a situation in which phytoplankton population is divided into two groups, namely susceptible phytoplankton and infected phytoplankton. A number of existence and non-existence results about the non-constant steady states of a reaction diffusion system are given. If the diffusion coefficient of the infected phytoplankton is treated as bifurcation parameter, non-constant positive steady-state solutions may bifurcate from the constant steady-state solution under some conditions.