A qualitative study on general Gause-type predator-prey models with non-monotonic functional response

In this paper, we study a diffusive predator-prey model with general growth rates and nonmonotonic functional response under homogeneous Neumann boundary condition. A local existence of periodic solutions and the asymptotic behavior of spatially inhomogeneous solutions are investigated. Moreover, we show the existence and non-existence of non-constant positive steady-state solutions. Especially, to show the existence of non-constant positive steady-states, the fixed point index theory is used without estimating the lower bounds of positive solutions. More precisely, calculating the indexes at the trivial, semi-trivial and positive constant solutions, some sufficient conditions for the existence of non-constant positive steady-state solutions are studied. This is in contrast to the works in previous papers. Furthermore, on obtaining these results, we can observe that the monotonicity of a prey isocline at the positive constant solution plays an important role. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.