Uniform persistence criteria for a variable inputs chemostat model with delayed response in growth and complete analysis of the periodic case

TL;DR

This paper establishes uniform persistence criteria for a variable-input chemostat model with delayed growth response and provides a complete analysis of the periodic case, including existence and stability of solutions.

Contribution

It proves that persistence implies uniform persistence and characterizes the periodic solutions in the delayed chemostat model without restrictions on delay size.

Findings

Persistence implies uniform persistence.

Existence of a unique attractive periodic solution.

Threshold conditions for biomass survival or extinction.

Abstract

We study a single-species chemostat model with variable nutrient input and variable dilution rate with delayed (fixed) response in growth. The first goal of this article is to prove that persistence implies uniform persistence. Then we concentrate in the particular case with periodic nutrient input and same periodic dilution with delayed response in growth. We obtain a threshold for either the (uniform) persistence of the model or that the biomass of every solution tends to vanish. Furthermore, we prove that persistence is equivalent to the existence of a unique non-trivial periodic solution. We also prove that this solution is attractive. We remark in no case we need to impose any restrictions on the size of the delay.