Oscillations and bifurcation structure of reaction-diffusion model for cell polarity formation.

We investigate the oscillatory dynamics and bifurcation structure of a reaction-diffusion system with bistable nonlinearity and mass conservation, which was proposed by (Otsuji et al., PLoS Comp Biol 3:e108, 2007). The system is a useful model for understanding cell polarity formation. We show that this model exhibits four different spatiotemporal patterns including two types of oscillatory patterns, which can be regarded as cell polarity oscillations with the reversal and non-reversal of polarity, respectively. The trigger causing these patterns is a diffusion-driven (Turing-like) instability. Moreover, we investigate the effects of extracellular signals on the cell polarity oscillations.

An aggregation model of cockroaches with fast-or-slow motion dichotomy.

We propose a mathematical model, namely a reaction-diffusion system, to describe social behaviour of cockroaches. An essential new aspect in our model is that the dispersion behaviour due to overcrowding effect is taken into account as a counterpart to commonly studied aggregation. This consideration leads to an intriguing new phenomenon which has not been observed in the literature. Namely, due to the competition between aggregation towards areas of higher concentration of pheromone and dispersion avoiding overcrowded areas, the cockroaches aggregate more at the transition area of pheromone. Moreover, we also consider the fast reaction limit where the switching rate between active and inactive subpopulations tends to infinity. By utilising improved duality and energy methods, together with the regularisation of heat operator, we prove that the weak solution of the reaction-diffusion system converges to that of a reaction-cross-diffusion system.

The formation of spreading front: the singular limit of three-component reaction-diffusion models.

Understanding the invasion processes of biological species is a fundamental issue in ecology. Several mathematical models have been proposed to estimate the spreading speed of species. In recent decades, it was reported that some mathematical models of population dynamics have an explicit form of the evolution equations for the spreading front, which are represented by free boundary problems such as the Stefan-like problem (e.g., Mimura et al., Jpn J Appl Math 2:151-186, 1985; Du and Lin, SIAM J Math Anal 42:377-405, 2010). To understand the formation of the spreading front, in this paper, we will consider the singular limit of three-component reaction-diffusion models and give some interpretations for spreading front from the viewpoint of modeling. As an application, we revisit the issue of the spread of the grey squirrel in the UK and estimate the spreading speed of the grey squirrel based on our result. Also, we discuss the relation between some free boundary problems related to population dynamics and mathematical models describing Controlling Invasive Alien Species. Lastly, we numerically consider the traveling wave solutions, which give information on the spreading behavior of invasive species.

On a nonlocal system for vegetation in drylands.

Several mathematical models are proposed to understand spatial patchy vegetation patterns arising in drylands. In this paper, we consider the system with nonlocal dispersal of plants (through a redistribution kernel for seeds) proposed by Pueyo et al. (Oikos 117:1522-1532, 2008) as a model for vegetation in water-limited ecosystems. It consists in two reaction diffusion equations for surface water and soil water, combined with an integro-differential equation for plants. For this system, under suitable assumptions, we prove well-posedness using the Schauder fixed point theorem. In addition, we consider the stationary problem from the viewpoint of vegetated pattern formation, and show a transition of vegetation patterns when parameter values (rainfall, seed dispersal range, seed germination rate) in the system vary. The influence of the shape of the redistribution kernel is also discussed.

Diffusion-driven destabilization of spatially homogeneous limit cycles in reaction-diffusion systems.

We study the diffusion-driven destabilization of a spatially homogeneous limit cycle with large amplitude in a reaction-diffusion system on an interval of finite size under the periodic boundary condition. Numerical bifurcation analysis and simulations show that the spatially homogeneous limit cycle becomes unstable and changes to a stable spatially nonhomogeneous limit cycle for appropriate diffusion coefficients. This is analogous to the diffusion-driven destabilization (Turing instability) of a spatially homogeneous equilibrium. Our approach is based on a reaction-diffusion system with mass conservation and its perturbed system considered as an infinite dimensional slow-fast system (relaxation oscillator).