COMPETITION OF TWO PHYTOPLANKTON SPECIES FOR LIGHT WITH WAVELENGTH

We study the competition of two phytoplankton species for a single resource-light with wavelength in a well mixed water column. The model was proposed by Stomp et al. in 2007, in this model each species prefers different interval of light spectrum. Their experimental results show that colorful phytoplankton species coexist. We classify the global behavior of the model by stability of equilibrium and the theory of monotone dynamical systems. The conclusion is that one of the following holds: one species competitively excludes the other, two species coexist, bistability of two species. We also analyze the special case when species have linear growth function, and the outcome is either competitive exclusion or two species coexistence; the results are consistent with the Stomp's experiments in 2004.