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We propose a new reaction–diffusion predator–prey model system with predator-taxis in which the preys could move in the opposite direction of predator gradient. A similar situation also occurs when susceptible population avoids the infected ones in epidemic spreading. The global existence and boundedness of solutions of the system in bounded domains of arbitrary spatial dimension and any predator-taxis sensitivity coefficient are proved. It is also shown that such predator-taxis does not qualitatively affect the existence and stability of coexistence steady state solutions in many cases. For diffusive predator–prey system with diffusion-induced instability, it is shown that the presence of predator-taxis may annihilate the spatial patterns.

A reaction-diffusion predator-prey system with prey-taxis and predatortaxis describes the spatial interaction and random movement of predator and prey species, as well as the spatial movement of predators pursuing prey and prey evading predators. The spatial pattern formation induced by the preytaxis and predator-taxis is characterized by the Turing type linear instability of homogeneous state and bifurcation theory. It is shown that both attractive prey-taxis and repulsive predator-taxis compress the spatial patterns, while repulsive prey-taxis and attractive predator-taxis help to generate spatial patterns. Our results are applied to the Holling-Tanner predator-prey model to demonstrate the pattern formation mechanism.

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