Dr. Stephan Getzin | Scientist | Ecologist

Workshop for tour guides

The idea for a workshop for tour guides was born at the end of February 2025 at the “2nd Fairy Circle Symposium” in Wolwedans. Not only scientists were present at this conference, but also many tour guides. At the end of the symposium, the tour guides wanted to know what they should tell their international guests about fairy circles. At the conference, the majority of scientific presentations dealt with topics that explained plant self-organization as the cause of fairy circles. However, this pattern formation of plants and the associated water flows in the soil are neither easy to understand nor easily visible. Therefore, the offer of a full-day workshop on this topic was very welcome. In consultation with the management of the NamibRand Nature Reserve (Stephan Brückner, Nils Odendaal, Jessica Steyn), we chose November 27 for a workshop in Wolwedans.

For the workshop “Fairy Circles and Plant Adaptations to Water Stress in the Namib”, I put together four major thematic blocks on the desert ecology of the Namib that go far beyond the topic of fairy circles. On November 27, more than twenty tour guides arrived at Wolwedans Village. Most came from the Greater Sossusvlei-Namib Landscape, such as NaDEET, Greenfire, or Kwessi Dunes. But three guides even traveled for two days from Hoanib Valley Camp. They also got their money's worth, because there are many fairy circles in the Giribes Plain near the camp, which were also discussed in detail in the lectures. The four lectures dealt with the following topics:

The first lecture, The climate of Namibia and examples of plant adaptations to water stress, dealt with Namibia’s climate and the importance of annual rainfall and evaporation. Both variables determine how arid a region is and how severely plants are exposed to drought stress. Many comparative images show how quickly the desert can change as a result of rainfall. However, this mainly affects the growth of grasses, as woody plants such as the quiver tree grow extremely slowly. The presentation introduced several examples of plant adaptations to water scarcity, including the ability to form very deep or very shallow roots, to have thick water-storing trunks, or to be particularly drought-resistant as resurrection plants. Another important adaptation is the self-organization of plants and their ability to form special geometries such as circles, rings, or stripes with plastically adaptable growth, which allows the plants to make optimal use of the scarce water.

The second lecture, The distribution of fairy circles and of plant rings within Namibia, discusses in detail the differences between plant rings and fairy circles. Although both are circular in shape due to the self-organization of the plants, they are two different phenomena. The plant rings of the Namib have never been scientifically studied or described, which is why the German Research Foundation funded a project from early 2023 to early 2026. In total, we found over a dozen plant species along the Namib that all form rings. This lecture introduces some of these ring-forming species. It then goes on to show different types of fairy circles and their occurrences. Fairy circles can occur anywhere where the average annual rainfall is < 150 mm. This includes regions of the Kalahari in southeastern Namibia. Fairy circles are an expression of water scarcity, which is why they also occur in a certain area in Western Australia.

In the third lecture, Looking back at 25 years of research on fairy circles and discussing various hypotheses, I go into detail about the various hypotheses regarding the origin of fairy circles. In 2000, a colleague and I published the first study to use the term “fairy circles” in a scientific publication. Prior to that, there was no uniform terminology. Since 2000, over 100 scientific articles on fairy circles have been published in the Web of Science. In this lecture, I explain the different theories on the origin of fairy circles such as the euphorbia hypothesis and the termite hypothesis, and I cite several fairy circle experts with their comments on such theories.

In the concluding lecture, Explaining plant self-organization in the Namib and based on worldwide vegetation patterns, I show that fairy circles are just one of many examples of plant self-organization around the world. Highly ordered, geometric plant patterns occur everywhere in arid regions on Earth. The plants act as so-called ecosystem engineers, actively redistributing the scarce water in their landscape. They use their leaf or root material to build dams, just like beavers, for example. The pattern formation is caused by the swarm intelligence of the plants, as they arrange themselves in such a way as to make optimal use of the sparse rainfall. The resulting patterns thus reflect an intelligent adaptation to drought at the system level. The presentation also includes a large amount of my own soil-moisture measurement data, which I have recorded continuously over many years. This soil-moisture data provides insights into the redistribution of soil water, which is otherwise not so easy and obvious to see, as it takes place hidden beneath the soil surface.

In addition to the lectures, the tour guides also received a poster, summarizing The main hypotheses about the origin of fairy circles. The lectures and the poster linked here can be downloaded for viewing, however, they contain partly unpublished material and remain the intellectual property of the author.

After the lectures, we took three open-top Land Cruisers on an excursion to the fairy circles at Jagkop. We were particularly lucky for this excursion, as it rained heavily in the area on November 14, causing the grasses around the fairy circles to turn green. The immediate greening of the grasses is proof that the fairy circles supply the surrounding grasses with water. The perennial grasses at the edge, with their well-developed roots at a depth of about 30 cm, benefit immediately from the rainwater because they do not have to germinate from seeds first. This gives them an immense competitive advantage after the rain over the annual grasses, which were only visible as tiny seedlings on November 27. The excursion was well used by all participants to better understand the self-organization of grasses. Overall, the workshop was a rewarding event for all tour guides, and each participant also received a certificate from the University of Göttingen for their participation.

Thanks to NamibRand for organizing this event and thanks to all tour guides for your interest and lively discussions!