Spatial dynamics of a Lotka-Volterra model with a shifting habitat

Abstract

In this paper, we study a Lotka-Volterra competition-diffusion model that describes the growth, spread and competition of two species in a shifting habitat. Our results show that (I) if the competition between the two species are either mutually strong or mutually weak against each other, the spatial dynamics mainly depend on environment worsening speed c and the spreading speed of each species in the absence of the other in the best possible environment; (II) if one species is a strong competitor and the other is a weak competitor, then the interplay of the species’ competing strengths and the spreading speeds also has an effect on the spatial dynamics. Particularly, we find that a strong but slower competitor can co-persist with a weak but faster competitor, provided that the environment worsening speed is not too fast.