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Department Colloquium

Speaker: Tyler Meadows (¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥)

Title: Resource Competition in Sequencing Batch Reactors

Abstract:
Sequencing batch reactors are a type of bioreactor in which bacteria consume resources in order to produce things that we want (pharmaceuticals, biofuels, etc). The bacterial species involved in these reactors are often carefully engineered, and the introduction of competing bacterial strains can lead to unwanted byproducts. In this talk, I will review some of the basic principles behind modeling competition using dynamical systems, including the famous Lotka-Volterra competition model. We will look at how the knowledge of the LV model translates to a simple model of resource competition, the chemostat. Finally, we will look at how some of the fundamental results for the chemostat are altered in the discontinuous environment of sequencing batch reactors.