Instituto Multidisciplinar para el Estudio del Medio 'Ramón Margalef', Universidad de Alicante, Alicante 03690, Spain.
Laboratorio de Biodiversidad y Funcionamiento Ecosistémico. Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiología de Sevilla (IRNAS), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Sevilla 41012, Spain.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Oct 3;120(40):e2304032120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2304032120. Epub 2023 Sep 25.
Fairy circles (FCs) are regular vegetation patterns found in drylands of Namibia and Western Australia. It is virtually unknown whether they are also present in other regions of the world and which environmental factors determine their distribution. We conducted a global systematic survey and found FC-like vegetation patterns in 263 sites from 15 countries and three continents, including the Sahel, Madagascar, and Middle-West Asia. FC-like vegetation patterns are found in environments characterized by a unique combination of soil (including low nutrient levels and high sand content) and climatic (arid regions with high temperatures and high precipitation seasonality) conditions. In addition to these factors, the presence of specific biological elements (termite nests) in certain regions also plays a role in the presence of these patterns. Furthermore, areas with FC-like vegetation patterns also showed more stable temporal productivity patterns than those of surrounding areas. Our study presents a global atlas of FCs and provides unique insights into the ecology and biogeography of these fascinating vegetation patterns.
仙女环（FCs）是在纳米比亚和澳大利亚西部干旱地区发现的规则植被模式。目前还不清楚它们是否也存在于世界其他地区，以及哪些环境因素决定了它们的分布。我们进行了全球系统调查，在 15 个国家和三个大陆的 263 个地点发现了类似 FC 的植被模式，包括萨赫勒、马达加斯加和中东亚洲。类似 FC 的植被模式存在于土壤（包括低营养水平和高沙含量）和气候（干旱地区，高温和高降水季节性）条件独特组合的环境中。除了这些因素外，某些地区特定生物元素（白蚁巢）的存在也会影响这些模式的存在。此外，具有类似 FC 的植被模式的区域的时间生产力模式也比周围区域更稳定。我们的研究提供了一个全球的 FC 地图集，并为这些迷人的植被模式的生态学和生物地理学提供了独特的见解。
