Chaotic Hierarchy in a Model of Competing Populations

The dynamics of a deterministic model for the interaction of populations of bacteria attacked by phages is analyzed. We find that the basic system with one type of bacteria and phages can show oscillations in a CSTR. Two, three and four competing populations show chaos, hyperchaos and chaos with three positive Lyapunov exponents, respectively. We discuss the principle of generating complexity by coupling of oscillators with a common feeding source.