Effects of a Toxicant on a Single-Species Population with Partial Pollution Tolerance in a Polluted Environment

Abstract

We study a model for the long-term behavior of a single-species population with some degree of pollution tolerance in a polluted environment. The model consists of three ordinary differential equations: one for the population density, one for the amount of toxicant inside the living organisms, and one for the amount of toxicant in the environment. We derive sufficient conditions for the persistence and the extinction of the population depending on the exogenous input rate of the toxicant into the environment and the level of pollution tolerance of the organisms. Numerical simulations are carried out to illustrate our main results.