In Namibia and Australia, mysterious ring-like patterns of flora encircle dry sections of the earth, but no one understands why. These ring-like formations, known as ‘fairy circles,’ have perplexed experts for decades, leaving them wondering what they are. New research on these strange patterns now promises to provide some clues into their formation and locations. “We conducted a global and systematic assessment of fairy circle-like vegetation patterns and discovered hundreds of [fairy-circle]-like locations on three continents,” writes a team led by environmental scientist Emilio Guirado of the University of Alicante in Spain.
Fairy circles are inexplicable ring-like patterns of plants that are commonly spotted in Namibia and Australia’s deserts
Fairy circles are inexplicable ring-like patterns of plants that are commonly spotted in Namibia and Australia’s deserts. A new global evaluation identified 263 such bald areas with similar perplexing characteristics. They are distributed across three continents and fifteen nations, including the Sahel, Madagascar, and the Middle East. According to Emilio, the new study reveals insights into the ecology and biogeography of the intriguing vegetation patterns, as well as the first map of their global vegetation. Emilio and his colleagues conducted a systematic assessment of 574,799 hectare-sized plots of land around the world using very high-resolution satellite photography and machine learning to analyze the results. This laborious investigation rewarded the scientists with a greatly expanded atlas of fairy circles.
“Our analyses revealed 263 locations with [fairy-circle]-like vegetation patterns distributed across dry lands worldwide,” they write. According to the experts, this knowledge will aid in determining what causes them. This is due to their ability to identify unique qualities that are shared by all areas where fairy circles can be found. A very dry, arid desert environment; high temperatures and seasonal precipitation; and soil with very little nutrients and a high sand content are among these. Surprisingly, the researchers discovered that places with fairy rings have more steady vegetative productivity over time than those without fairy rings. According to Emilio and his colleagues, their findings can assist in uncovering region-specific reasons why fairy rings may appear.
“The global atlas introduced here advances our understanding of the biogeography of fairy circle-like vegetation patterns and will facilitate conducting future research about the characteristics and mechanisms underlying these enigmatic vegetation patterns in locations never studied so far,” they write.