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Open Access Publications from the University of California

Scholarly Works (3 results)

  • Thesis
  • Peer Reviewed
UC Santa Barbara Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2014)

In my dissertation research, I investigated how coastal fog influences the water relations and distribution of Bishop pine (Pinus muricata D. Don), a drought sensitive species restricted to the fog belt of coastal California and offshore islands. I will discuss three related projects motivated by the following research questions: 1) Can the current spatial pattern of Bishop pine mortality on Santa Cruz Island be explained by important environmental and biological controls on plant available water? 2) How do summertime fog water inputs affect the water status of Bishop pines? Do adult and sapling trees respond to fog differently? and 3) What is the relative importance of fog-drip and fog immersion to the physiological function of Bishop pine saplings? I addressed these questions by using a variety of approaches ranging from remote sensing techniques to field-based plant physiology. The outcomes of these studies provide evidence that coastal fog is an essential element to augmenting plant available water during the dry season and that its occurrence supports the southern extent of its range on Santa Cruz Island. Moreover, this work advances our ability to make mechanistically-based predictions of how foggy coastal forests may respond to a warmer, drier climate.

    Cover page: Influences of coastal fog on the physiology and distribution of Bishop pine on Santa Cruz Island, California
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    UCLA Previously Published Works (2016)
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      UCLA Previously Published Works (2016)
      Abstract: The presence of low-lying stratocumulus clouds and fog has been known to modify biophysical and ecological properties in coastal California where forests are frequently shaded by low-lying clouds or immersed in fog during otherwise warm and dry summer months. Summer fog and stratus can ameliorate summer drought stress and enhance soil water budgets and often have different spatial and temporal patterns. Here, this study uses remote sensing datasets to characterize the spatial and temporal patterns of cloud cover over California’s northern Channel Islands. The authors found marine stratus to be persistent from May to September across the years 2001–12. Stratus clouds were both most frequent and had the greatest spatial extent in July. Clouds typically formed in the evening and dissipated by the following early afternoon. This study presents a novel method to downscale satellite imagery using atmospheric observations and discriminate patterns of fog from those of stratus and help explain patterns of fog deposition previously studied on the islands. The outcomes of this study contribute significantly to the ability to quantify the occurrence of coastal fog at biologically meaningful spatial and temporal scales that can improve the understanding of cloud–ecosystem interactions, species distributions, and coastal ecohydrology.
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