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Cloud immersion: an important water source for spruce and fir saplings in the southern Appalachian Mountains

  • Physiological ecology - Original research
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Abstract

Cloud immersion can provide a potentially important moisture subsidy to plants in areas of frequent fog including the threatened spruce-fir communities of the southern Appalachian Mountains (USA). These mountaintop communities grow only above ~1,500 m elevation, harbor the endemic Abies fraseri, and have been proposed to exist because of frequent cloud immersion. While several studies have demonstrated the importance of cloud immersion to plant water balance, no study has evaluated the proportion of plant water derived from cloud moisture in this ecosystem. Using the isotopic mixing model, IsoSource, we analyzed the isotopic composition of hydrogen and oxygen for water extracted from ground water, deep soil, shallow soil, fog, and plant xylem at the upper and lower elevational limits both in May (beginning of the growing season) and October (end of the growing season). Cloud-immersion water contributed up to 31 % of plant water at the upper elevation sites in May. High-elevation plants of both species also experienced greater cloud immersion and had greater cloud water absorption (14–31 %) compared to low-elevation plants (4–17 %). Greater cloud water uptake occurred in May compared to October, despite similar rainfall and cloud-immersion frequencies. These results demonstrate the important water subsidy that cloud-immersion water can provide. With a warming climate leading potentially to increases in the ceiling of the cloud base and, thus, less frequent cloud immersion, persistence of these relic mountaintop forests may depend on the magnitude of these changes and the compensating capabilities of other water sources.

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Acknowledgments

Support was provided through a grant from the National Science Foundation (IOS 1122092), plus a Vecellio grant to Z. C. Berry through the Biology Department, Wake Forest University. Thanks to L. Crane and B. Wilder of Mount Mitchell State Park for project insight and cooperation, to K. H. Berry for field assistance, B. Robb for lab assistance, and to J. White and N. Yavit for manuscript advice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, 27109-7325, USA

    Z. Carter Berry & William K. Smith

  2. Department of Biology, High Point University, University Station 3591, High Point, NC, 27262, USA

    Nicole M. Hughes

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  1. Z. Carter Berry
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  2. Nicole M. Hughes
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  3. William K. Smith
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Correspondence to Z. Carter Berry.

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Communicated by Evan H. DeLucia.

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Berry, Z.C., Hughes, N.M. & Smith, W.K. Cloud immersion: an important water source for spruce and fir saplings in the southern Appalachian Mountains. Oecologia 174, 319–326 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-013-2770-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-013-2770-0

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