Ecologists Confirm Alan Turing's Theory for Australian Fairy Circles
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:
Ecologists confirm Alan Turing's theory for Australian fairy circles:
Fairy circles are one of nature's greatest enigmas and most visually stunning phenomena. An international research team led by the University of Gottingen has now, for the first time, collected detailed data to show that Alan Turing's model explains the striking vegetation patterns of the Australian fairy circles. In addition, the researchers showed that the grasses that make up these patterns act as "eco-engineers" to modify their own hostile and arid environment, thus keeping the ecosystem functioning. The results were published in the Journal of Ecology.
[...] The systematic and detailed fieldwork enabled, for the first time in such an ecosystem, a comprehensive test of the 'Turing pattern' theory. Turing's concept was that in certain systems, due to random disturbances and a 'reaction-diffusion' mechanism, interaction between just two diffusible substances was enough to allow strongly patterned structures to spontaneously emerge. Physicists have used this model to explain the striking skin patterns in zebrafish or leopards for instance. Earlier modeling had suggested this theory might apply to these intriguing vegetation patterns and now there is robust data from multiple scales which confirms that Alan Turing's model applies to Australian fairy circles.
[...] In 1952 when the British mathematician, Alan Turing, published his ground-breaking theoretical paper on pattern formation, he had most likely never heard of the fairy circles before. But with his theory he laid the foundation for generations of physicists to explain highly symmetrical patterns like sand ripples in dunes, cloud stripes in the sky or spots on an animal's coat with the reaction-diffusion mechanism. Now, ecologists have provided an empirical study to extend this principle from physics to dryland ecosystems with fairy circles.
Journal Reference:
Stephan Getzin, Todd E. Erickson, Hezi Yizhaq, et al. Bridging ecology and physics: Australian fairy circles regenerate following model assumptions on ecohydrological feedbacks [open], Journal of Ecology (DOI: 10.1111/1365-2745.13493)
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