Fairy circles in Namibia are assembled from genetically distinct grasses.

ABSTRACT: Fairy circles are striking regularly sized and spaced, bare circles surrounded by Stipagrostis grasses that occur over thousands of square kilometres in Namibia. The mechanisms explaining their origin, shape, persistence and regularity remain controversial. One hypothesis for the formation of vegetation rings is based on the centrifugal expansion of a single individual grass plant, via clonal growth and die-back in the centre. Clonality could explain FC origin, shape and long-term persistence as well as their regularity, if one clone competes with adjacent clones. Here, we show that for virtually all tested fairy circles the periphery is not exclusively made up of genetically identical grasses, but these peripheral grasses belong to more than one unrelated genet. These results do not suppo

SUBMITTER: Kappel C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7680098 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature