Fog drip is water dripping to the ground during fog. It occurs when water droplets from the fog adhere to the needles or leaves of trees or other objects, coalesce into larger drops and then drop to the ground. [1]
Fog drip can be an important source of moisture in areas of low rainfall, or in areas that are seasonally dry.
A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud cover, usually at the canopy level, formally described in the International Cloud Atlas (2017) as silvagenitus. Cloud forests often exhibit an abundance of mosses covering the ground and vegetation, in which case they are also referred to as mossy forests. Mossy forests usually develop on the saddles of mountains, where moisture introduced by settling clouds is more effectively retained.
The Santa Cruz Mountains are a mountain range in central and Northern California, United States, constituting a part of the Pacific Coast Ranges. They form a ridge down the San Francisco Peninsula, south of San Francisco. They separate the Pacific Ocean from the San Francisco Bay and the Santa Clara Valley, and continue south to the Central Coast, bordering Monterey Bay and ending at the Salinas Valley. The range passes through the counties of San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz, with the Pajaro River forming the southern boundary.
Temperate rainforests are rainforests with coniferous or broadleaf forests that occur in the temperate zone and receive heavy rain.
The ecology of California can be understood by dividing the state into a number of ecoregions, which contain distinct ecological communities of plants and animals in a contiguous region. The ecoregions of California can be grouped into four major groups: desert ecoregions, Mediterranean ecoregions, forested mountains, and coastal forests.
Mount Tamalpais, known locally as Mount Tam, is a peak in Marin County, California, United States, often considered symbolic of Marin County. Much of Mount Tamalpais is protected within public lands such as Mount Tamalpais State Park, the Marin Municipal Water District watershed, and National Park Service land, such as Muir Woods.
Cedros Island is an island in the Pacific Ocean belonging to the state of Baja California, Mexico. The dry and rocky island had a population of 1,350 in 2005 and has an area of 348 square kilometres (134 sq mi) which includes the area of several small nearby islands. Cedros Island is mountainous, reaching a maximum elevation of 1,205 metres (3,953 ft). The economy is based on commercial fishing and salt production. Cedros has a distinctive flora and the traces of some of the earliest human beings in the New World. The ocean around the island is popular with sport fishermen.
The Northern California coastal forests are a temperate coniferous forests ecoregion of coastal Northern California and southwestern Oregon.
California mixed evergreen forest is a plant community found in the mountain ranges of California and southwestern Oregon.
A Closed-cone conifer forest or woodland is a plant community occurring in coastal California and several offshore islands. The forests typically have a single-aged single-species conifer overstory with dense ladder fuels. Overstory species include coulter pine, monterey pine, bishop pine, shore pine, and several endemic cypresses, species which generally rely on fire to open their cones and release seeds. Closed-cone forests often grow in low nutrient and/or stressed soils, which can lead to slow growth.
Dwarf forest, elfin forest, or pygmy forest is an uncommon ecosystem featuring miniature trees, inhabited by small species of fauna such as rodents and lizards. They are usually located at high elevations, under conditions of sufficient air humidity but poor soil. There are two main dwarf forest ecosystem types, involving different species and environmental characteristics: coastal temperate and montane tropical regions. Temperate coastal dwarf forest is common for parts of Southern California. Montane tropical forests are found across tropical highlands of Central America, northern South America and Southeast Asia. There are also other isolated examples of dwarf forests scattered across the world, while the largest dwarf forest is found in the Philippines.
Jackson Demonstration State Forest is a public forest in Mendocino County, California managed by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. It is the largest demonstration forest operated by the State of California. The forest land, located along California State Highway 20 between Willits and the coastal city of Fort Bragg, was formerly owned by Caspar Lumber Company. The forest holds sacred value as an ancestral home and ceremonial site for the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians.
The Coast Range ecoregion is a Level III ecoregion designated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. states of Washington, Oregon, and California. It stretches along the Pacific Coast from the tip of the Olympic Peninsula in the north to the San Francisco Bay in the south, including Grays Harbor, Willapa Bay, and the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington, the entire length of the Oregon Coast, and the Northern California Coast. Named for the Coast Range mountains, it encompasses the lower elevations of the Olympic Mountains, the Oregon Coast Range, the Californian North Coast Ranges, and surrounding lowlands.
The Klamath Mountains ecoregion of Oregon and California lies inland and north of the Coast Range ecoregion, extending from the Umpqua River in the north to the Sacramento Valley in the south. It encompasses the highly dissected ridges, foothills, and valleys of the Klamath and Siskiyou Mountains. It corresponds to the Level III ecoregion designated by the Environmental Protection Agency and to the Klamath-Siskiyou forests ecoregion designated by the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Sequoia sempervirens is the sole living species of the genus Sequoia in the cypress family Cupressaceae. Common names include coast redwood, coastal redwood, and California redwood. It is an evergreen, long-lived, monoecious tree living 1,200–2,200 years or more. This species includes the tallest living trees on Earth, reaching up to 115.9 m (380.1 ft) in height and up to 8.9 m (29 ft) in diameter at breast height. These trees are also among the longest-living organisms on Earth. Before commercial logging and clearing began by the 1850s, this massive tree occurred naturally in an estimated 810,000 ha along much of coastal California and the southwestern corner of coastal Oregon within the United States.
The Angelo Coast Range Reserve is located in the Northern Outer California Coast Ranges, in Mendocino County, Northern California. As part of the University of California Natural Reserve System, the mission of the Angelo Reserve is to provide protected natural areas for research and education.
Fog collection is the harvesting of water from fog using large pieces of vertical mesh netting to induce the fog-droplets to flow down towards a trough below. The setup is known as a fog fence, fog collector or fog net. Through condensation, atmospheric water vapour from the air condenses on cold surfaces into droplets of liquid water known as dew. The phenomenon is most observable on thin, flat, exposed objects including plant leaves and blades of grass. As the exposed surface cools by radiating its heat to the sky, atmospheric moisture condenses at a rate greater than that of which it can evaporate, resulting in the formation of water droplets.
The Galbreath Wildlands Preserve is a 3,670-acre (14.9 km2) nature reserve in Mendocino County, California, United States, established in 2004 in honor of Fred Burckhalter Galbreath (1901-2000). The preserve, a former sheep ranch, is located in the Outer Coast Range 17 miles (27 km) from the coast, near Yorkville. The Preserve features woodland, forest and grassland communities that lie at the edge of coastal fog influence. Lands are in the upper Rancheria sub-basin of the Navarro Watershed and contain 1st - 5th order streams. The Preserve's forests are primarily second-growth coniferous forest and hardwood.
San Andrés Creek, now called San Andreas Creek, is a perennial stream that flows 5.9 miles (9.5 km) southeasterly along the San Andreas Fault from Sweeney Ridge in San Mateo County, California, providing the inflow to and outflow from San Andreas Reservoir, and then entering Lower Crystal Springs Reservoir, where it was a historic tributary to San Mateo Creek. San Mateo Creek then carries its waters over Crystal Springs Dam northeast to San Francisco Bay.
Laguna Creek is a perennial stream that flows northwesterly for 2.6-mile (4.2 km) along the San Andreas Fault from Woodside in San Mateo County, California and, after crossing the Phleger Estate and Filoli, enters Upper Crystal Springs Reservoir, where it is a historic tributary to San Mateo Creek. San Mateo Creek then carries its waters over Crystal Springs Dam northeast to San Francisco Bay.
Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucial factor in shaping plant community, biodiversity, metabolic processes and ecosystem dynamics for montane ecosystems. Dense montane forests are common at moderate elevations, due to moderate temperatures and high rainfall. At higher elevations, the climate is harsher, with lower temperatures and higher winds, preventing the growth of trees and causing the plant community to transition to montane grasslands and shrublands or alpine tundra. Due to the unique climate conditions of montane ecosystems, they contain increased numbers of endemic species. Montane ecosystems also exhibit variation in ecosystem services, which include carbon storage and water supply.
