A NEW MONOTONICITY FOR PRINCIPAL EIGENVALUES WITH APPLICATIONS TO TIME-PERIODIC PATCH MODELS

A new monotonocity of principal eigenvalues in time-periodic patch environments is established. As an application, a patch model for two competing species in spatio-temporally varying environments is investigated. When two species are identical except for their relaxation time, the species with the shorter relaxation time will always drive the other one to extinction. When two species are identical except for their diffusion rates, our results suggest that the faster diffusing species could be favored for some intermediate range of relaxation time, while the slower diffusing species will be favored for both short and long relaxation time. In general, short relaxation time and slow diffusion rate tend to help species gain advantage in competition.