Significance of summer fog and overcast for drought stress and ecological functioning of coastal California endemic plant species

Fog has often been identified as a crucial water source for plants in a variety of ecosystems world-wide, including a number of those identified as global biodiversity hotspots (Hamilton et al., 1995; Olson & Dinerstein, 1998). Biodiversity hotspots where fog is thought to play a particularly important role in species distributions include tropical montane cloud Geography Department, California State University Northridge, Northridge, Department of Geography and Institute of Computational Earth System Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA