The Answer To A Great Mystery

Marisa Brown

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Over the past 50 years, studies have been going on surrounding “fairy circles.” Fairy circles are barren grass that has spread 1,100 miles in the grasslands of Southern Africa. The grass around it has somehow found a way to thrive in one of the driest places. This is due to the ability to maximize the limited amount of water. For the past three years, Stephan Getzin has been researching the matter and has found the water from within the circles was depleting fast. The fact that there was no grass to soak the water up made Getzin, and his team question what had happened. While searching for an answer, they found that this grass had evolved to create a vacuum system around its roots.

In the past, it might have been sand termites destroying the roots of the grass, but this theory was turned down in 2016 when a similar study in Australia found no evidence of pests. The roots from within the circle were longer than those outside the circle. This is to help fight for water with the outer grass. This project has been worked on for three years straight, but Getzin feels there is more research to be done. Despite this fact, he feels it is time to move on to a new project, leaving this mystery partially unsolved.