Systems of elliptic boundary value problems and applications to competition models

We generalize the main result on existence of nonzero nonnegative solutions of systems of second order elliptic boundary value problems obtained by Lan (2011). The motivation for the generalization is to propose and study the competition models of Ricker and Beverton–Holt types governed by such systems. To the best of our knowledge, there is little study on such continuous competition models although such difference equation and first order ordinary differential equation competition models have been widely studied. Our results enrich and develop the connections among the classical fixed point index theory, systems of second order elliptic boundary value problems and population dynamics.