New Study Links Clouds to Microbial Processes in Soil for
First Time –– and Shows Ways that Climate Change Could Affect Entire Forest
Ecosystems
The fog comes in, and a drop of water forms on a pine
needle, rolls down the needle, and falls to the forest floor. The process is
repeated over and over, on each pine needle of every tree in a forest of Bishop
pines on Santa Cruz Island, off the coast of Santa Barbara. That fog drip helps
the entire forest ecosystem stay alive.
Thousands of years ago, in cooler and wetter times, Bishop
pine trees are thought to have proliferated along the West Coast of the U.S.
and Mexico. Now, stratus clouds –– the low-altitude clouds known locally as
"June gloom" –– help keep the trees growing on Santa Cruz Island,
Santa Rosa Island, and on one island off Baja California. Other than these
locations, Bishop pine trees grow only farther north in California where it is
cooler and wetter.