THE SIGN OF TRAVELING WAVE SPEED IN BISTABLE DYNAMICS

Abstract

We are concerned with the sign of traveling wave speed in bistable dynamics. This question is related to which species wins the competition in multiple species competition models. It is well-known that the wave speed is unique for traveling wave connecting two stable states. In this paper, we first review some known results on the sign of wave speed in bistable two species competition models. Then we derive rigorously the sign of bistable wave speed for a special three species competition model describing the competition in two different circumstances: (1) two species are weak competitors and one species is a strong competitor; (2) three species are very strong competitors. It is interesting to observe that, under certain conditions on the parameters, two weaker competitors can wipe out the strongest competitor.