Effect of prey-taxis on predator's invasion in a spatially heterogeneous environment

Abstract

In this study, we consider a diffusive predator-prey system with prey-taxis and ratio-dependent functional responses in a spatially heterogeneous environment. Prey-taxis implies that the predator exhibits directed movement in the presence of prey. We claim that when the predator diffuses uniformly without prey-taxis, only the diffusion of the species plays a role in the predator's invasion in a spatially homogeneous environment. However, when the predator disperses through uniform diffusion together with prey-taxis, we observe that both the diffusion of species and prey-taxis affect the invasion of the predator, which is not the case in a spatially homogeneous environment. The results are obtained by investigating the local stability of a semi-trivial solution, using an eigenvalue analysis. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.