“Fairy rings” (or witches) are strange patterns that resemble foxes on bare ground in the savannah. They were first found in Namibia and later in other parts of the world. For many years, “fairy circles” have puzzled scientists, but now the answer to the question of why they appear appears to have been found.

It is known that “Fairy circles” form in soils with low nitrogen content and in regions where the average annual precipitation is less than 200 millimeters.

Scientists from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Israel) and the University of Göttingen (Germany) have developed a model to predict the processes of emergence of “fairy circles”, which takes into account water scarcity in certain regions and individual adaptation to drought of plants.

Calculations showed that new features of adaptation to water scarcity appeared in plants growing after drought. The model successfully predicted which areas of the territory’s environments it should appear in and which it should not. Its verification in real conditions confirmed the presence or absence of circles.