Why coastal fog matters to ecosystems from a basic and applied perspective - Livestream

Fog is a key ingredient to the summertime climate of coastal California. It offsets heat and water stress through shading and direct water inputs in terrestrial ecosystems. Fog events can also moderate stream temperature in sensitive riparian habitats. I will present highlights from three separate research projects that each examined a central question: how does coastal fog influence ecosystem function? The three study systems include: urban pollinator habitat, coastal streams, and a wildfire impacted grassland. Field investigations and manipulative greenhouse experiments were conducted to address research questions. In the urban pollinator habitat, we found that coastal fog buffers water stress of a plant species that is critical to the survival of a rare and threatened butterfly species in San Francisco. In the coastal streams, we found that fog events buffer stream temperature increases during heat waves in habitat that supports endangered salmonid species. In the grasslands, we found that carbon sequestration by grasslands differs between burned and unburned sites, and that coastal fog events can explain some the observed variability in carbon uptake by plants. Collectively, we learned from these studies that coastal fog does matter to the pulse of these ecosystems, but the magnitude varies in time and space and is nested in the complexity of each place.

Speaker: Sara Baguskas, Terrestrial Biogeographer, Associate Professor, School of the Environment, San Francisco State University

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