Zip and velcro bifurcations in competition models in ecology and economics

Abstract

During the last six years or so, a number of interesting papers discussed systems with line segments of equilibria, planes of equilibria, and with more general equilibrium configurations. This note draws attention to the fact that such equilibria were considered previously by Mikl\'os Farkas (1932-2007), in papers published in 1984-2005. He called zip bifurcations those involving line segments of equilibria, and velcro bifurcations those involving planes of equilibria. We briefly describe prototypical situations involving zip and velcro bifurcations.