Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-19-2013

Publication Title

Open Journal of Applied Sciences

DOI

10.4236/ojapps.2013.35042

ISSN

2165-3917

Abstract

We compare the effects of interactive and noninteractive complementary nutrients on the growth of an organism in the chemostat. We also compare these two situations to the case when the nutrients are substitutable. In previous studies, complementary nutrients have been assumed to be noninteractive. However, more recent research indicates that some complementary nutrient relationships are interactive. We show that interactive complementary and substitutable nutrients can lead to higher population densities than do noninteractive complementary nutrients. We numerically illustrate that if the washout rate is high, an organism can persist at higher densities when the complementary nutrients are interactive than when they are noninteractive, which can result in the extinction of the organism. Finally, we present an example by making a small adjustment to the model that leads to a single nutrient model with an intermediate metabolite of the original substrate as the nutrient for the organism.

Comments

Copyright © 2013 James P. Braselton et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Article obtained from the Open Journal of Applied Sciences.

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