TITLE:
Comparing the Effects of Interactive and Noninteractive Complementary Nutrients on Growth in a Chemostat
AUTHORS:
James P. Braselton, Martha L. Abell, Lorraine M. Braselton
KEYWORDS:
Chemostat; Growth; Dual Substrate; Complementary Nutrients; Substitutable Nutrients
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Applied Sciences,
Vol.3 No.5,
September
24,
2013
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.