Abstract
It is well known that when two microbial populations competing for a single rate-limiting nutrient are grown in a chemostat with time-invariant inputs, with competition being the only interaction between them, they cannot coexist, but eventually one of the two populations prevails and the other becomes extinct. It has been suggested that periodic variation of one of the chemostat's operating parameters can stabilize the coexistence state of the two microbial populations. A systematic numerical study of the model equations describing microbial competition in a chemostat with periodically varying dilution rate is performed, and it is shown that coexistence of the competing microbial populations is obtained for a wide range of operating conditions. The coexistence state is usually in the form of limit cycle oscillations. However, cases of chaotic behavior resulting from successive period doublings and quasi-periodicity are also observed.
Published Version
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