Propagation and its failure in a lattice delayed differential equation with global interaction

We study the existence, uniqueness, global asymptotic stability and propagation failure of traveling wave fronts in a lattice delayed differential equation with global interaction for a single species population with two age classes and a fixed maturation period living in a spatially unbounded environment. In the bistable case, under realistic assumptions on the birth function, we prove that the equation admits a strictly monotone increasing traveling wave front. Moreover, if the wave speed does not vanish, then the wave front is unique (up to a translation) and globally asymptotic stable with phase shift. Of particular interest is the phenomenon of “propagation failure” or “pinning” (that is, wave speed c = 0), we also give some criteria for pinning in this paper.