A Non-local Cross-Diffusion Model of Population Dynamics II: Exact, Approximate, and Numerical Traveling Waves in...

We study traveling waves in a non-local cross-diffusion-type model, where organisms move along gradients in population densities. Such models are valuable for understanding waves of migration and invasion and how directed motion can impact such scenarios. In this paper, we demonstrate the emergence of traveling wave solutions, studying properties of both planar and radial wave fronts in one- and two-species variants of the model. We compute exact traveling wave solutions in the purely diffusive case and then perturb these solutions to analytically capture the influence directed motion has on these exact solutions. Using linear stability analysis, we find that the minimum wavespeeds correspond to the purely diffusive case, but numerical simulations suggest that advection can in general increase or decrease the observed wavespeed substantially, which allows a single species to more rapidly move into unoccupied resource-rich spatial regions or modify the speed of an invasion for two populations. We also find interesting effects from the non-local interactions in the model, suggesting that single species invasions can be enhanced with stronger non-locality, but that invasion of a competitive species may be slowed due to this non-local effect. Finally, we simulate pattern formation behind waves of invasion, showing that directed motion can have substantial impacts not only on wavespeed but also on the existence and structure of emergent patterns, as predicted in the first part of our study (Taylor et al. in Bull Math Biol, 2020).