Science is Fun Fridays!

 

Fairy circles may refer to rings of mushrooms in the forest, or circular patches of desert land barren of plants.  They've been documented in the Namib Desert as well as Western Australia.

Recently, a team of researchers found hundreds of more sites, in Sahel, Western Sahara, the Horn of Africa, Madagascar, Southwest Asia, and Central Australia.

Discovering that these are more common than previously thought, allowed the team to "globally understand the factors affecting their distribution."

It was previously suggested that harvester termite nests play a role in this, and while they can, it has more to do with the conditions: in soil with low nitrogen content, in areas with an average rainfall of less than 8 inches per year.

Vegetation production in these formations was greater and more stable than in regions without them.