Mathematical Biology Seminar

Damon Toth, University of Washington
Friday March 9, 2007
4:00pm LCB 219
Dynamics of Age-Structured Populations in a Chemostat

Abstract: A chemostat is a laboratory apparatus that provides a controlled, resource-limited environment for microorganisms. Chemostat models are of considerable interest to theoretical ecologists because they can provide predictions with broad ecological ramifications that are testable in a laboratory. I will present a single-species chemostat model that couples a PDE describing an age-structured population with a system of ODEs describing a chemostat, and I'll show that limit cycles arise via Hopf bifurcations in all versions of the model. I'll also present a periodically forced version of the model that displays strongly resonant and chaotic behavior.