How flocculation can explain coexistence in the chemostat - INRAE - Institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement
Journal Articles Journal of Biological Dynamics Year : 2008

How flocculation can explain coexistence in the chemostat

Bart Haegeman

Abstract

We study a chemostat model in which two microbial species grow on a single resource. We show that species coexistence is possible when the species which would normally win the exclusive competition aggregates in flocs. Our mathematical analysis exploits the fact that flocculation is fast compared to biological growth, a common hypothesis in floc models. A numerical study shows the validity of this approach in a large parameter range. We indicate how our model yields a mechanistic justification for the so-called density-dependent growth.

Dates and versions

hal-00857826 , version 1 (04-09-2013)

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Bart Haegeman, Alain Rapaport. How flocculation can explain coexistence in the chemostat. Journal of Biological Dynamics, 2008, 2 (1), pp.1-13. ⟨10.1080/17513750801942537⟩. ⟨hal-00857826⟩
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