ABSTRACT
The classical theory of ecological competition between two or more species is an extension of the basic logistic model of single-species growth that dates from Verhulst. This chapter discusses the theory of exploitative competition for microbial organisms competing in mixed-growth laboratory cultures. The theory is developed for a culturing technique known as “continuous culture,” the most widely used laboratory idealization of a constant carrying capacity environment. The chapter describes the technique of continuously culturing microorganisms and details the mathematical model of single-species and multiple-species growth in continuous culture on a single limiting resource. It presents the mathematical analysis of the n-species, 1-resource model and gives some experimental results of tests of the model, and then generalizes by analogy to competition among unicellular planktonic algae in lakes and oceans. The chapter considers what happens when two competitors are predators feeding on the same population of prey, a different situation insofar as the “resource” is capable of self-renewal.
