Competition of two suspension-feeding protozoan populations for a growing bacterial population in continuous culture
- 1 March 1984
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Nature in Microbial Ecology
- Vol. 10 (1), 61-68
- https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02011595
Abstract
Mathematical studies for ecosystems involving 2 predators competing for a growing prey population have shown that the 2 competitors can coexist in a state of sustained oscillations for a range of values of the system parameters. For the case of 1 suspension-feeding protozoan population, recent experimental observations suggest that the predator-prey interaction is complicated by the ability of the bacteria to grow on products produced by the lysis of protozoan cells. This situation is studied here for the case where 2 suspension-feeding protozoan populations compete for a growing bacterial population in a chemostat. Computer simulations show that the 2 protozoan populations can coexist over a range of the operating parameters. Some necessary conditions for coexistence are presented as are some speculations regarding the possible physical explanations of results.This publication has 14 references indexed in Scilit:
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