Plants that use fog as an important water-source frequently have a rosette growth habit. The performance of this morphology
in relation to fog interception has not been studied. Some first-principles from physics predict that narrow leaves, together
with other ancillary traits (large number and high flexibility of leaves, caudices, and/or epiphytism) which constitute the
“narrow-leaf syndrome” should increase fog-interception efficiency. This was tested using aluminum models of rosettes that
differed in leaf length, width and number and were exposed to artificial fog. The results were validated using seven species
of
Tillandsia and four species of xerophytic rosettes. The total amount of fog intercepted in rosette plants increased with total leaf
area, while narrow leaves maximized interception efficiency (measured as interception per unit area). The number of leaves
in the rosettes is physically constrained because wide-leafed plants can only have a few blades. At the limits of this constraint,
net fog interception was independent of leaf form, but interception efficiency was maximized by large numbers of narrow leaves.
Atmospheric
Tillandsia species show the narrow-leaf syndrome. Their fog interception efficiencies were correlated to the ones predicted from aluminum-model
data. In the larger xerophytic rosette species, the interception efficiency was greatest in plants showing the narrow-leaf
syndrome. The adaptation to fog-harvesting in several narrow-leaved rosettes was tested for evolutionary convergence in 30
xerophytic rosette species using a comparative method. There was a significant evolutionary tendency towards the development
of the narrow-leaf syndrome the closer the species grew to areas where fog is frequently available. This study establishes
convergence in a very wide group of plants encompassing genera as contrasting as
Tillandsia and
Agave as a result of their dependence on fog.
Keywords Comparative method - Epiphyte - Functional morphology - Montane rosette scrub - Xerophyte
Communicated by Todd Dawson.