Research interests I am a plant ecophysiologist broadly interested in how local meteorology and climate variability impact plant function and distributions. The focus of my research is on understanding the influence of coastal fog on plant water and carbon relations in both natural and managed ecosystems. I use a variety of research techniques, including field-based ecological studies, controlled manipulative experiments, and spatial analyses to address research questions at multiple spatial and temporal scales.
This recent publication is one of two based on a project that I completed as a two-year USDA-NIFA postdoctoral research fellow studying the effects of coastal fog on crop water use from leaf to landscape scales. While we know quite a bit about how coastal fog influences plant function in natural ecosystems, this is the first mechanistically-based study to examine the impact of coastal fog on crop function. Furthermore, the results from this work can be used to inform irrigation decisions in coastal agricultural systems, which is timely given that many farm managers are tasked to make more sustainable water use decisions in the near future. We have another manuscript in-prep based on this research.
Contact info Assistant Professor Department of Geography & Environment San Francisco State University 1600 Holloway Ave. San Francisco, CA 94132 Email: baguskas@sfsu.edu