On the dynamical behavior of some algal allelopathic competitions in chemostat-like environment

The dynamics of some algal allelopathic competitions taking place in a laboratory chemostat-like environment are analyzed. Our main results concern the global asymptotic stability of some biologically meaningful steady-state solutions and have been obtained by means of limiting systems theory and construction of suitable Liapunov functions. In particular one of these results completely explains the outcome of several experiments recently performed and illustrated in Fergola et al. (Ecol Model 208:205–214, 2007) on the competition between C. vulgaris and P. subcapitata. Numerical simulations confirm the analytical results and show that saddle-node bifurcation phenomena can appear.