Plants self-organize in a 'hidden order,' echoing pattern found across nature

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Scientists have discovered a "perfect disordered hyperuniform" pattern in how plants arrange themselves across many dry landscapes that allows them to make the most of water resources.

The findings explain phenomena like "tiger bush" in West Africa, where bands of plants look like tiger stripes from above, or "fairy circles" in Namibia that look like spots from far away but are actually clumps of plants. These plants are self-organized in a way that helps them cope with drought and function in extreme conditions.

"It was a genuine surprise," study co-author Quan-Xing Liu, a mathematician at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, told Live Science in an email. "We expected to find either a completely random distribution or a regular, clumped pattern… instead, we uncovered a perfect disordered hyperuniform pattern — a form of hidden order no one had recognized before in plant communities."

https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/plants/plants-self-organize-in-a-hidden-order-echoing-pattern-found-across-nature