Asymptotic profiles of the positive steady state for an SIS epidemic reaction-diffusion model. Part I

To capture the impact of spatial heterogeneity of environment and movement of individuals on the persistence and extinction of a disease, Allen et al. in [L.J.S. Allen, B.M. Bolker, Y. Lou, A.L. Nevai, Asymptotic profiles of the steady states for an SIS epidemic reaction-diffusion model, Discrete Contin. Dyn. Syst. Ser. A 21 (1) (2008) 1-20] proposed a spatial SIS (susceptible-infected-susceptible) reaction-diffusion model, and studied the existence, uniqueness and particularly the asymptotic behavior of the endemic equilibrium as the diffusion rate of the susceptible individuals goes to zero in the case where a so-called low-risk subhabitat is created. In this work, we shall provide further understanding of the impacts of large and small diffusion rates of the susceptible and infected population on the persistence and extinction of the disease, which leads us to determine the asymptotic behaviors of the endemic equilibrium when the diffusion rate of either the susceptible or infected population approaches to infinity or zero in the remaining cases. Consequently, our results reveal that, in order to eliminate the infected population at least in low-risk area, it is necessary that one will have to create a low-risk subhabitat and reduce at least one of the diffusion rates to zero. In this case, our results also show that different strategies of controlling the diffusion rates of individuals may lead to very different spatial distributions of the population; moreover, once the spatial environment is modified to include a low-risk subhabitat, the optimal strategy of eradicating the epidemic disease is to restrict the diffusion rate of the susceptible individuals rather than that of the infected ones.     

Non-existence of non-constant positive steady states of two Holling type-II predator-prey systems: Strong interaction case

We prove the non-existence of non-constant positive steady state solutions of two reaction-diffusion predator-prey models with Holling type-II functional response when the interaction between the predator and the prey is strong. The result implies that the global bifurcating branches of steady state solutions are bounded loops.     

Diffusive monotonicity and threshold dynamics of delayed reaction diffusion equations

For abstract functional differential equations and reaction-diffusion equations with delay, an exponential ordering is introduced which takes into account the spatial diffusion. The induced monotonicity of the solution semiflows is established and applied to describe the threshold dynamics (extinction or persistence/convergence to positive equilibria) for a nonlocal and delayed reaction-diffusion population model.     

Attractors for nonlinear reaction-diffusion systems in unbounded domains via the method of short trajectories

We consider a nonlinear reaction-diffusion equation on the whole space Rd. We prove the well-posedness of the corresponding Cauchy problem in a general functional setting, namely, when the initial datum is uniformly locally bounded in L² only. Then we adapt the short trajectory method to establish the existence of the global attractor and, if d?3, we find an upper bound of its Kolmogorov's ε-entropy.     

Traveling wave fronts for generalized Fisher equations with spatio-temporal delays

We study the existence of traveling wave fronts for a reaction-diffusion equation with spatio-temporal delays and small parameters. The equation reduces to a generalized Fisher equation if small parameters are zero. We present two results. In the first one, we deal with the equation with very general kernels and show the persistence of Fisher wave fronts for all sufficiently small parameters. In the second one, we deal with some particular kernels, with which the nonlocal equation can be reduced to a system of singularly perturbed ODEs, and we are then able to apply the geometric singular perturbation theory and phase plane arguments to this system to show the existence of the minimal wave speed, the existence of a continuum of wave fronts, and the global uniqueness of the physical wave front with each wave speed.     

Turing patterns of a strongly coupled predator-prey system with diffusion effects

The main purpose of this work is to investigate the effects of cross-diffusion in a strongly coupled predator-prey system. By a linear stability analysis we find the conditions which allow a homogeneous steady state (stable for the kinetics) to become unstable through a Turing mechanism. In particular, it is shown that Turing instability of the reaction-diffusion system can disappear due to the presence of the cross-diffusion, which implies that the cross-diffusion induced stability can be regarded as the cross-stability of the corresponding reaction-diffusion system. Furthermore, we consider the existence and non-existence results concerning non-constant positive steady states (patterns) of the system. We demonstrate that cross-diffusion can create non-constant positive steady-state solutions. These results exhibit interesting and very different roles of the cross-diffusion in the formation and the disappearance of the Turing instability.     

Monotonicity and uniqueness of traveling waves for a reaction-diffusion model with a quiescent stage

This paper is concerned with the monotonicity and uniqueness of traveling waves for a reaction-diffusion model with quiescent stage. We first obtain the exponential decay rate of wave profiles, and then we show that any profile is strictly monotone by using the strong comparison principle. Furthermore, we prove the uniqueness (up to translation) of all traveling waves including even the waves with minimal speed.     

Traveling wavefronts for time-delayed reaction-diffusion equation: (II) Nonlocal nonlinearity

This is the second part of a series of study on the stability of traveling wavefronts of reaction-diffusion equations with time delays. In this paper we will consider a nonlocal time-delayed reaction-diffusion equation. When the initial perturbation around the traveling wave decays exponentially as x→−∞ (but the initial perturbation can be arbitrarily large in other locations), we prove the asymptotic stability of all traveling waves for the reaction-diffusion equation, including even the slower waves whose speed are close to the critical speed. This essentially improves the previous stability results by Mei and So [M. Mei, J.W.-H. So, Stability of strong traveling waves for a nonlocal time-delayed reaction-diffusion equation, Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh Sect. A 138 (2008) 551-568] for the speed with a small initial perturbation. The approach we use here is the weighted energy method, but the weight function is more tricky to construct due to the property of the critical wavefront, and the difficulty arising from the nonlocal nonlinearity is also overcome. Finally, by using the Crank-Nicholson scheme, we present some numerical results which confirm our theoretical study.     

On the geometry of wave solutions of a delayed reaction-diffusion equation

The aim of this paper is to study the existence and the geometry of positive bounded wave solutions to a non-local delayed reaction-diffusion equation of the monostable type.     

Hair-triggered instability of radial steady states, spread and extinction in semilinear heat equations

We first study the initial value problem for a general semilinear heat equation. We prove that every bounded nonconstant radial steady state is unstable if the spatial dimension is low (n?10) or if the steady state is flat enough at infinity: the solution of the heat equation either becomes unbounded as t approaches the lifespan, or eventually stays above or below another bounded radial steady state, depending on if the initial value is above or below the first steady state; moreover, the second steady state must be a constant if n?10.Using this instability result, we then prove that every nonconstant radial steady state of the generalized Fisher equation is a hair-trigger for two kinds of dynamical behavior: extinction and spreading. We also prove more criteria on initial values for these types of behavior. Similar results for a reaction-diffusion system modeling an isothermal autocatalytic chemical reaction are also obtained.     

Spatially nonhomogeneous equilibrium in a reaction-diffusion system with distributed delay

We consider a reaction-diffusion system with general time-delayed growth rate and kernel functions. The existence and stability of the positive spatially nonhomogeneous steady-state solution are obtained. Moreover, taking minimal time delay τ as the bifurcation parameter, Hopf bifurcation near the steady-state solution is proved to occur at a critical value τ=τ₀. Especially, the Hopf bifurcation is forward and the bifurcated periodic solutions are stable on the center manifold. The general results are applied to competitive and cooperative systems with weak or strong kernel function respectively.     

Pattern formation in a nonlinear model for animal coats

Several models have been proposed for describing the formation of animal coat patterns. We consider reaction-diffusion models due to Murray, which rely on a Turing instability for the pattern selection. In this paper, we describe the early stages of the pattern formation process for large domain sizes. This includes the selection mechanism and the geometry of the patterns generated by the nonlinear system on one-, two-, and three-dimensional base domains. These results are obtained by an adaptation of results explaining the occurrence of spinodal decomposition in materials science as modeled by the Cahn-Hilliard equation. We use techniques of dynamical systems, viewing solutions of the reaction-diffusion model in terms of nonlinear semiflows. Our results are applicable to any parabolic system exhibiting a Turing instability.     

Persistence of periodic patterns for perturbed biological oscillators

We apply the perturbation method and the Implicit Function Theorem to study the persistence of periodic patterns for two perturbed general biological oscillators: one weakly coupled ordinary differential equation and one reaction-diffusion system. The proof relies also on the formal adjoint equation theory and the Lyapunov-Schmidt method. For the perturbed reaction-diffusion model, spatial-temporal patterns such as rotating waves are shown to exist. Numerical simulations are presented to illustrate our analytical results.     

Hopf bifurcations in a reaction-diffusion population model with delay effect

A reaction-diffusion population model with a general time-delayed growth rate per capita is considered. The growth rate per capita can be logistic or weak Allee effect type. From a careful analysis of the characteristic equation, the stability of the positive steady state solution and the existence of forward Hopf bifurcation from the positive steady state solution are obtained via the implicit function theorem, where the time delay is used as the bifurcation parameter. The general results are applied to a “food-limited” population model with diffusion and delay effects as well as a weak Allee effect population model.     

Advection-mediated competition in general environments

We consider a reaction–diffusion–advection system of two competing species with one of the species dispersing by random diffusion as well as a biased movement upward along resource gradient, while the other species by random diffusion only. It has been shown that, under some non-degeneracy conditions on the environment function, the two species always coexist when the advection is strong. In this paper, we show that for general smooth environment function, in contrast to what is known, there can be competitive exclusion when the advection is strong, and, we give a sharp criterion for coexistence that includes all previously considered cases. Moreover, when the domain is one-dimensional, we derive in the strong advection limit a system of two equations defined on different domains. Uniqueness of steady states of this non-standard system is obtained when one of the diffusion rates is large.     

Nonmonotone travelling waves in a single species reaction-diffusion equation with delay

We prove the existence of a continuous family of positive and generally nonmonotone travelling fronts for delayed reaction-diffusion equations , when g∈C²(R₊,R₊) has exactly two fixed points: x₁=0 and x₂=K>0. Recently, nonmonotonic waves were observed in numerical simulations by various authors. Here, for a wide range of parameters, we explain why such waves appear naturally as the delay h increases. For the case of g with negative Schwarzian, our conditions are rather optimal; we observe that the well known Mackey-Glass-type equations with diffusion fall within this subclass of (∗). As an example, we consider the diffusive Nicholson's blowflies equation.     

Hopf bifurcation in a size-structured population dynamic model with random growth

This paper is devoted to the study of a size-structured model with Ricker type birth function as well as random fluctuation in the growth process. The complete model takes the form of a reaction-diffusion equation with a nonlinear and nonlocal boundary condition. We study some dynamical properties of the model by using the theory of integrated semigroups. It is shown that Hopf bifurcation occurs at a positive steady state of the model. This problem is new and is related to the center manifold theory developed recently in [P. Magal, S. Ruan, Center manifold theorem for semilinear equations with non-dense domain and applications to Hopf bifurcation in age-structured models, Mem. Amer. Math. Soc., in press] for semilinear equation with non-densely defined operators.     

A system of partial differential equations modeling the competition for two complementary resources in flowing habitats

This paper examines a system of reaction-diffusion equations arising from a flowing water habitat. In this habitat, one or two microorganisms grow while consuming two growth-limiting, complementary (essential) resources. For the single population model, the existence and uniqueness of a positive steady-state solution is proved. Furthermore, the unique positive solution is globally attracting for the system with regard to nontrivial nonnegative initial values. Mathematical analysis for the two competing populations is carried out. More precisely, the long-time behavior is determined by using the monotone dynamical system theory when the semi-trivial solutions are both unstable. It is also shown that coexistence solutions exist by using the fixed point index theory when the semi-trivial solutions are both (asymptotically) stable.     

Traveling wavefronts for time-delayed reaction-diffusion equation: (I) Local nonlinearity

In this paper, we study a class of time-delayed reaction-diffusion equation with local nonlinearity for the birth rate. For all wavefronts with the speed c>c_∗, where c_∗>0 is the critical wave speed, we prove that these wavefronts are asymptotically stable, when the initial perturbation around the traveling waves decays exponentially as x→−∞, but the initial perturbation can be arbitrarily large in other locations. This essentially improves the stability results obtained by Mei, So, Li and Shen [M. Mei, J.W.-H. So, M.Y. Li, S.S.P. Shen, Asymptotic stability of traveling waves for the Nicholson's blowflies equation with diffusion, Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh Sect. A 134 (2004) 579-594] for the speed with small initial perturbation and by Lin and Mei [C.-K. Lin, M. Mei, On travelling wavefronts of the Nicholson's blowflies equations with diffusion, submitted for publication] for c>c_∗ with sufficiently small delay time r≈0. The approach adopted in this paper is the technical weighted energy method used in [M. Mei, J.W.-H. So, M.Y. Li, S.S.P. Shen, Asymptotic stability of traveling waves for the Nicholson's blowflies equation with diffusion, Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh Sect. A 134 (2004) 579-594], but inspired by Gourley [S.A. Gourley, Linear stability of travelling fronts in an age-structured reaction-diffusion population model, Quart. J. Mech. Appl. Math. 58 (2005) 257-268] and based on the property of the critical wavefronts, the weight function is carefully selected and it plays a key role in proving the stability for any c>c_∗ and for an arbitrary time-delay r>0.     

On a system of reaction-diffusion equations arising from competition with internal storage in an unstirred chemostat

In this paper we study a system of reaction-diffusion equations arising from competition of two microbial populations for a single-limited nutrient with internal storage in an unstirred chemostat. The conservation principle is used to reduce the dimension of the system by eliminating the equation for the nutrient. The reduced system (limiting system) generates a strongly monotone dynamical system in its feasible domain under a partial order. We construct suitable upper, lower solutions to establish the existence of positive steady-state solutions. Given the parameters of the reduced system, we answer the basic questions as to which species survives and which does not in the spatial environment and determine the global behaviors. The primary conclusion is that the survival of species depends on species's intrinsic biological characteristics, the external environment forces and the principal eigenvalues of some scalar partial differential equations. We also lift the dynamics of the limiting system to the full system.