The Dynamics Of Two Microbial Competing For One Essential Resource In The Chemostat With Dormancy Mechanism

Competition between two species that can switch between active growing and quiescent state growing mode is considered. It is well known that when two species(don't have the dormancy mechanism) competing for one essential resource the species which has the higher break-even concentration will extinct. The main results of the paper is that when the two competing species having dormancy mechanism, the species has the higher break-even concentration can survive all the time. Numerical simulations show that the population density of the species which has the higher break-even concentration approaches to a positive steady state via transient oscillations, which establishes the fact that microbial can attain self-adaptation through switching between active growing and quiescent state.