Projects
Montane meadow restoration & carbon sequestration
How do interactions meadow restoration and climate variability impact carbon sequestration rates in a montane meadow in the Sierra Nevada? This collaborative and interdisciplinary project is funded by the California Department of Fish & Wildlife in partnership with The Sierra Fund. The SFSU team includes expertise in hydrology, bioclimatology, plant ecophysiology, and GIS as well as remote sensing. My lab focuses on understanding the role of plant communities in explaining meadow-scale patterns of productivity.
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Fog & Butterflies in urban restored habitat
Fog & farms
How does coastal fog impact on crop water use and carbon gain in a California agricultural system?
Coastal fog events offset water stress in a variety of ecosystems during the dry season in Mediterranean climates. In coastal California, the occurrence of summertime fog overlaps with the peak growing and harvest season for many economically important crops. In an effort to inform irrigation decisions in an ultimately water limited ecosystem, we conducted field investigations to understand the impact of coastal fog on crop water use in strawberry fields in the Salinas Valley, California from May-October in 2015 and 2016. We quantified the effects of foggy and non-foggy conditions on leaf and canopy-scale gas exchange rates (e.g., photosynthesis, transpiration, and stomatal conductance). We installed passive fog collectors and micrometeorological instrumentation to measure the effects of fog on the physical environment. In 2016, I collaborated with biometeorologist, Dr. Andrew Oliphant in the Department of Geography & Environment at SFSU, to collect continuous observations of how local meteorology, and fog events in particular, impact the energy, water, and carbon fluxes at the field scale using an eddy covariance approach. See our two publications on this work.
Coastal fog events offset water stress in a variety of ecosystems during the dry season in Mediterranean climates. In coastal California, the occurrence of summertime fog overlaps with the peak growing and harvest season for many economically important crops. In an effort to inform irrigation decisions in an ultimately water limited ecosystem, we conducted field investigations to understand the impact of coastal fog on crop water use in strawberry fields in the Salinas Valley, California from May-October in 2015 and 2016. We quantified the effects of foggy and non-foggy conditions on leaf and canopy-scale gas exchange rates (e.g., photosynthesis, transpiration, and stomatal conductance). We installed passive fog collectors and micrometeorological instrumentation to measure the effects of fog on the physical environment. In 2016, I collaborated with biometeorologist, Dr. Andrew Oliphant in the Department of Geography & Environment at SFSU, to collect continuous observations of how local meteorology, and fog events in particular, impact the energy, water, and carbon fluxes at the field scale using an eddy covariance approach. See our two publications on this work.
Fog & Fish: Influence of coastal fog on stream temperature in salmonid habitat in coastal California
Salmonid species are threatened in coastal California largely due to degraded stream habitat. Stream temperature is an important water quality parameter that can determine the suitability of a stream for juvenile salmonid species. To advance our understand the role of micrometeorology on stream conditions, this research examined the relationship between coastal fog events and stream temperature in critical salmonid habitat. We conducted field work in 2019 and 2021, which allows us to compare an average rainfall year with an exceptional drought year when the pools were disconnected. Funding support comes from the California Sea Grant. This work is in progress and supports a current Masters Student and undergraduate researcher.
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Other Projects
How does coastal fog influence the physiology and distribution of a drought-sensitive pine species?
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 conducted three related projects motivated by the following research questions: 1) What are the spatial patterns and environmental drivers of drought-induced Bishop pine mortality at the southern extent of its distribution in California on Santa Cruz Island? 2) What are the effects of summertime drought and fog water inputs on the water relations of adult and sapling Bishop pines, and 3) How do fog-drip and canopy fog immersion impact leaf-level physiological function during a dry-down period? 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.
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