Turing instability in a coupled predator-prey model with different Holling type functional responses

Abstract

In a reaction-diffusion system, diffusion can induce the instability of a positive equilibrium which is stable with respect to a constant perturbation, therefore, the diffusion may create new patterns when the corresponding system without diffusion fails, as shown by Turing in 1950s. In this paper we study a coupled predator-prey model with different Holling type functional responses, where cross-diffusions are included in such a way that the prey runs away from predator and the predator chase preys. We conduct the Turing instability analysis for each Holling functional response. We prove that if a positive equilibrium solution is linearly stable with respect to the ODE system of the predator-prey model, then it is also linearly stable with respect to the model. So diffusion and cross-diffusion in the predator-prey model with Holling type functional responses given in this paper can not drive Turing instability. However, diffusion and cross-diffusion can still create non-constant positive solutions for the model.