Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 November 2011
Previous fixed-point index calculation results (see [4] and [7]) exploited in the study of population systems on bounded domains are no longer applicable to systems on the whole ℝn, due mainly to the lack of compactness. In this paper, we develop fixed-point index calculation techniques for non-compact operators so that they are applicable to systems on the whole ℝn. We illustrate the use of our fixed-point index calculation results by a simple representative model, namely, the Lotka–Volterra N-species periodic competition system on the whole ℝn.