Birkhoff center and statistical behavior of competitive dynamical systems

Abstract

We investigate the location and structure of the Birkhoff center for competitive dynamical systems, and give a comprehensive description of recurrence and statistical behavior of orbits. An order-structure dichotomy is established for any connected component of the Birkhoff center, that is, either it is unordered, or it consists of strongly ordered equilibria. Moreover, there is a canonically defined countable disjoint family $F$ of invariant $(n-1)$-cells such that each unordered connected component of the Birkhoff center lies on one of these cells. We further show that any connected component of the supports of invariant measures either consists of strongly ordered equilibria, or lies on one element of $F$. In particular, any 3-dimensional competitive flow has topological entropy 0.