Stability of oscillations in the spatially extended May-Leonard model

The May-Leonard model for three competing species, symmetric with respect to cyclic permutation of the variables and extended by diffusive terms, is considered. Exact time-periodic solutions of the system have been found, and their stability with respect to spatially periodic disturbances is studied. The stability of solu tions with respect to longwave spatial modulations is revealed. A period doubling instability breaking the spatial uniformity is found.