Publication Details

Category Text Publication
Reference Category Journals
DOI 10.1186/s12862-021-01834-5
Licence creative commons licence
Title (Primary) Revisiting Theron’s hypothesis on the origin of fairy circles after four decades: Euphorbias are not the cause
Author Getzin, S.; Nambwandja, A.; Holch, S.; Wiegand, K.
Source Titel BMC Ecology and Evolution
Year 2021
Department OESA
Volume 21
Page From art. 102
Language englisch
Topic T5 Future Landscapes
Supplements https://ndownloader.figstatic.com/files/28229390
https://ndownloader.figstatic.com/files/28229393
Keywords Clark–Evans index, Clustered dispersal, Drone, Euphorbias, Fairy circles, Heterogeneity, Homogeneity, Infiltration, Pattern-process inference, Spatially periodic patterns
Abstract Background: The Euphorbia hypothesis on the origin of fairy circles (FCs) in Namibia dates back to 1979. It proposes that the remains of decaying shrubs would induce an allelopathic interaction with the grasses and thereby cause bare-soil FCs. Here, we investigated this hypothesis based on revisiting marked Euphorbias after four decades, comparing the typical size distribution of dead Euphorbia damarana and FCs, and analyzing the spatial patterns of Euphorbias and FCs within the same drone-mapped study plots in three regions of Namibia.

Results: We found four dead Euphorbias in the southern Giribes that were marked by G.K. Theron about 40 years ago. Those locations did not develop into FCs over this time span. However, for the four dead Euphorbias, we provide photographic evidence that grass tufts were growing at the metal pins of those decaying shrubs, agreeing with previous research findings that the soil taken from beneath dead E. damarana shrubs was stimulating rather than inhibiting the growth of grasses. In the Giribes, there were very large FCs that ranged in diameter from 13.0 to 19.1 m. By contrast, the measured dead E. damarana, including the largest plants that we could find, ranged in size only between 4.2 and 11.7 m. At Brandberg, we found particularly small FCs with diameters between 2.4 and 2.7 m but the dead E. damarana, including the smallest dead shrubs in the area, ranged in size between 4.1 and 7.2 m. Hence given these size mismatches, the decaying Euphorbias cannot induce such observed FCs in the two regions. Spatial patterns of E. damarana and FCs in the two regions Giribes and Brandberg, as well as of E. gummifera and FCs near Garub, showed a strong mismatch within the same habitat: in four out of five plots the patterns differed significantly. FCs were regularly distributed while Euphorbias were predominantly clustered.

Conclusions: We reject the Euphorbia hypothesis based on the fact that grass growth was not prevented under decaying shrubs, the size of dead Euphorbias cannot explain the size of observed FCs and the spatial distribution of Euphorbias cannot cause the specific pattern signature of FCs.
Persistent UFZ Identifier https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=24749
Getzin, S., Nambwandja, A., Holch, S., Wiegand, K. (2021):
Revisiting Theron’s hypothesis on the origin of fairy circles after four decades: Euphorbias are not the cause
BMC Ecol. Evol. 21 , art. 102 10.1186/s12862-021-01834-5