Bistable wavefronts in a diffusive and competitive Lotka-Volterra type system with nonlocal delays

A diffusive Lotka-Volterra type model with nonlocal delays for two competitive species is considered. The existence of a traveling wavefront analogous to a bistable wavefront for a single species is proved by transforming the system with nonlocal delays to a four-dimensional system without delay. Furthermore, in order to prove the asymptotic stability (up to translation) of bistable wavefronts of the system, the existence, regularity and comparison theorem of solutions of the corresponding Cauchy problem are first established for the systems on R by appealing to the theory of abstract functional differential equations. The asymptotic stability (up to translation) of bistable wavefronts are then proved by spectral methods. In particular, we also prove that the spreading speed is unique by upper and lower solutions technique. From the point of view of ecology, our results indicate that the nonlocal delays appeared in the interaction terms are not sensitive to the invasion of species of spatial isolation. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.