Spatial Dynamics of A Reaction-Diffusion Model with Distributed Delay

Department of Mathematics and Statistics Memorial University of Newfoundland St. John’s, NL A1C 5S7, Canada

^⋆ Corresponding author. E-mail: zhao@mun.ca

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the study of spreading speeds and traveling waves for a class of reaction-diffusion equations with distributed delay. Such an equation describes growth and diffusion in a population where the individuals enter a quiescent phase exponentially and stay quiescent for some arbitrary time that is given by a probability density function. The existence of the spreading speed and its coincidence with the minimum wave speed of monostable traveling waves are established via the finite-delay approximation approach. We also prove the existence of bistable traveling waves in the case where the associated reaction system admits a bistable structure. Moreover, the global stability and uniqueness of the bistable waves are obtained in the case where the density function has zero tail