Some of us may already know about the "wireless" patch of forest at the James Reserve run by the UC system and Mike Hamilton up near Idyllwild. That's where robotic cameras and other high-tech gadgets spy on wildlife, trees and even the roots below. The idea is to eventually piece together the research to detail the inner workings of a mountain ecosystem.

Along those same lines, the U.S. Forest Service announced this week plans to place monitors in 18 experimental forest and range sites nationwide, including the San Dimas Experimental Forest in the Angeles National Forest, just over the boundary of the San Bernardino National Forest. The monitors wll gauge the impacts from climate change, invasive species, natural disasters and human development.

The data from the transcontinental network will then be integrated into a global monitoring program operated by the United Nations' International Cooperative Programme. Andrzej Bytnerowicz, a research ecologist for the Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Lab in Riverside, serves as the liaison for the program. He says the forest network will be the first U.S. sites to contribute specific atmospheric, hydrological and biological information that meets the ICP's high standards of data collection.

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