Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 June 2013
This paper is devoted to the study of spreading speeds and traveling waves for a class ofreaction-diffusion equations with distributed delay. Such an equation describes growth anddiffusion in a population where the individuals enter a quiescent phase exponentially andstay quiescent for some arbitrary time that is given by a probability density function.The existence of the spreading speed and its coincidence with the minimum wave speed ofmonostable traveling waves are established via the finite-delay approximation approach. Wealso prove the existence of bistable traveling waves in the case where the associatedreaction system admits a bistable structure. Moreover, the global stability and uniquenessof the bistable waves are obtained in the case where the density function has zerotail