Existence and uniqueness of forced waves in a delayed reaction–diffusion equation in a shifting environment

Abstract The existence and uniqueness of forced waves in a general reaction–diffusion equation with time delay under climate change is concerned in this paper. By using upper and lower solutions method, monotone iteration scheme combined with the strong maximum principle, we show that there exists a nondecreasing and unique wave front with the speed consistent with the habitat shifting speed. Our results indicate the propagation of both the leading and trailing edges of the comoving population wavefront lag behind the climate envelope, which drives the species to extinction. Three examples and their corresponding numerical simulations are also given to illustrate the universality of analytical conclusions.