Changing of the Local Ecosystem
It’s a very foggy morning here in Berkeley, same all week, and yet…. The redwoods are doomed. As if the loss of 95% of their habitat wasn’t enough, now it’s the loss of summer fog.
“The redwoods along our coast are highly dependent on fog as a source of water during the summer when water in the ground is scarce,” Todd E. Dawson, one of the study’s two authors, said in an interview. “Foggy nights are needed to rehydrate the trees that can’t tolerate long droughts.”
Mature redwoods are unlikely to die if the decrease in fog persists, he said. But fewer seeds are likely to sprout, take root and grow to maturity.
The map included with the article shows Berkeley being redwood habitat, and yet the redwoods were all cut down here long ago. Our house was built out of local redwood timber in 1920. So all we can say is, less fog in Berkeley might not be such a bad thing for the redwoods that aren’t in Berkeley anymore anyway. Further north, on the other hand, is a disaster in the making.
