Existence of traveling wave solutions for diffusive predator-prey type systems (Q665975)

The authors study the following reaction-diffusion predator-prey system \[ \begin{aligned} u_t=&d_1u_{xx}-h(u)(g(w)-p(u)), \\ w_t=&d_2w_{xx}-l(w)q(u), \end{aligned}\tag{1} \] where the functions \(u(x,t)\) and \(w(x,t)\) represent the densities of the prey and the predator populations at time \(t\) and location \(x\), respectively. The parameters \(d_1\) and \(d_2\) are positive constants representing the spatial diffusion rates of the two species; \(p(u), g(w), h(u), l(w)\) and \(q(u)\) are smooth functions -- the function \(h(u)p(u)\) is the net growth rate of the prey in the absence of predator; the function \(h(u)\) is the predator response which describes consumption rate of prey by a unit number of predators. Applying the method of Ważewski, LaSalle's invariance principle and Hopf bifurcation theory, sufficient conditions are derived for the existence of traveling wave solutions connecting two different equilibria or the small amplitude traveling wave train solutions. These results can be applied to several kinds of ecological models.