Relatively mesic environments within arid regions may be important conservation targets as 'climate change refugia' for species persistence in the face of worsening drought conditions. Semi-arid southern California and the relatively mesic environments of California's Channel Islands provide a...

Despite the appeal of the iso/anisohydric framework for classifying plant drought responses, recent studies have shown that such classifications can be strongly affected by a plant's environment. Here, we present measured in situ drought responses to demonstrate that apparent isohydricity can be...

California's coastal climate is characterized by rainy winters followed by a dry summer season that is supplemented by frequent fog. While rising temperatures and drought caused massive tree mortality in central California during the 2011-2015 extreme drought, dying trees were less common in the...

Bedrock vadose zone water storage (i.e., rock moisture) dynamics are rarely observed but potentially key to understanding drought responses. Exploiting a borehole network at a Mediterranean blue oak savanna site-Rancho Venada-we document how water storage capacity in deeply weathered bedrock...

Anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition represents a significant N input for many terrestrial ecosystems. N deposition can affect plants on scales ranging from photosynthesis to community composition, yet few studies have investigated how changes in N availability affect plant water relations. We...

Across Mediterranean-type climate regions, seasonal drought desiccates plants, facilitating ignition and the spread of wildfires. Along the California coast, summertime fog has the potential to ameliorate drought conditions and thus reduce plant flammability during a critical time of elevated fire...

The San Dimas Experimental Forest (SDEF) is located in southern California and is representative of the chaparral shrublands of the Southwest USA. Chaparral - including genera of Ceanothus, Adenostoma, Quercus, Salvia and Arctostaphylos - is a dense, drought-tolerant vegetation assemblage with a...

Juniperus californica (California juniper; Cupressaceae) occurs in a variety of habitats, including pinyon-juniper woodlands and high elevation desert scrub in the northwestern Sonoran Desert. The goal was to determine how much physiological and structural plasticity and microclimate allow J....

Forest conservation and carbon sequestration efforts are on the rise, yet the long-term stability of these efforts under a changing climate remains unknown. We generate nearly three decades of remotely sensed canopy water content throughout California, which we use to determine patterns of drought...

The impacts of tropospheric ozone on conifer health in the Sierra Nevada of California, USA, and the Pyrenees of Catalonia, Spain, were measured using field assessments and GIS variables of landscape gradients related to plant water relations, stomatal conductance and hence to ozone uptake....