Propagation Speed of the Bistable Traveling Wave to the Lotka–Volterra Competition System in a Periodic Habitat

We study propagation direction of the traveling wave for the diffusive Lotka–Volterra competition system with bistable nonlinearity in a periodic habitat. By directly proving the strong stability of two semitrivial equilibria, we establish a new and sharper result on the existence of traveling wave. Using the method of upper and lower solutions, we provide two comparison theorems concerning the direction of traveling wave propagation. Several explicit sufficient conditions on the determination of the speed sign are established. In addition, an interval estimation of the bistable-wave speed reveals the relations among the bistable speed and the spreading speeds of two monostable subsystems. Biologically, our idea and insight provide an effective approach to find or control the direction of wave propagation for a system in heterogeneous environments.