Fairy circles discovered in Australia by researchers

Source: chattahbox.com --- Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) and Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig, Germany are unraveling the mystery behind what causes “fairy circles.” Recently discovered in the uninhabited Australian outback, fairy circles were thought to exist only in Africa. According to a new study in the PNAS journal ( Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ), the research team found new evidence that these barren circular patches of land — previously thought to exist only in the dry Namibia grassland of southern Africa — occur due to the way plants organize themselves in response to water shortage. Up to now, scientists offered several theories to explain the honeycomb-like pattern formed by these circles, which have long been considered one of nature’s greatest mysteries. Some believed termites or ants nibble away at the roots of the grasses and kill them. Others suspected toxic carbon monoxide gas may rise from the earth under the circles and kill the vegetation. But the discoveries documented in the March, 2016 study corroborate a third, self-organization theory, which shows the amount of water available at the transition between desert and grassland is not enough for continuous vegetation cover. As a result, individual plants compete for precious water and organize themselves in this highly irregular characteristic grass carpet with large holes that provide water to the surrounding vege ...

from Australia http://ift.tt/1WUAmbZ