Concentration Phenomena in a Nonlocal Quasi-linear Problem Modelling Phytoplankton II: Limiting profile

Abstract

This is Part II of our study on the positive steady state of a quasi-linear reaction-diffusion system in one space dimension introduced by Klausmeier and Litchman for the modelling of the distributions of phytoplankton biomass and its nutrient. In Part I, we proved nearly optimal existence and nonexistence results. In Part II, we obtain complete descriptions of the profile of the solutions when the coefficient of the drifting term is large, rigorously proving the numerically observed phenomenon of concentration of biomass for this model. Moreover, we reveal four critical numbers for the model and provide further insights to the problem being modelled.