It's a wilderness of the wireless kind.

Computer scientists and biologists, undertaking a pioneering effort that promises to revolutionize the way nature is studied, have outfitted a 30-acre patch of Inland forest near Idyllwild with robotic cameras and other high-tech gadgets that spy on its wildlife, trees and even the roots below.

Through remote and mostly wireless technology, scientists sitting hundreds of miles away can operate a camera that swings on cables through the trees, watch as bluebird eggs hatch inside nest boxes, measure how quickly ferns grow, and see how pollution from car-crazy Southern California affects the rustic canyon.

"This is definitely going to change the way we do science," said Michael Allen, director of UC Riverside's Center for Conservation Biology.

Allen is one of several scientists conducting experiments in the outdoor laboratory whose high-tech gizmos can do what the humans can't -- non-intrusive, around-the-clock monitoring that can reveal the most subtle and abrupt changes in weather, plants, animals and the soil. Eventually, the information will piece together the detailed inner workings of a mountain ecosystem.

"This is going to fill in the gaps of our knowledge," said Michael Hamilton, director of the James San Jacinto Mountain Reserve, where the test is unfolding.

Terry Pierson / The Press-Enterprise

Michael Hamilton, director of the James San Jacinto Mountain Reserve, examines one of the many monitoring stations that are part of a project covering a 30-acre patch of forest. He says the project "is going to fill in the gaps of our knowledge."

'Hot Moments'

"You want to know when those hot moments occur," he said. "Is the forest going to disappear in the next 50 years if the temperature changes by three degrees? Now we have a window into those variables."

The project at the reserve is part of an emerging nationwide effort to take the pulse of various ecosystems using some of the same tiny, hand-held technology in cell phones to gather and transmit observations.

Much like the Internet changed the way the world communicates, the system of smart sensors and actuators dotting the reserve and elsewhere is expected to vastly improve and accelerate what biologists know about the physical world.

The knowledge derived from the studies could one day save lives and the Earth itself, Hamilton said.

Long-Term Potential

The technology, he and other scientists said, could eventually be used to uncover ways to combat global warming, track the deadly West Nile virus transmitted by mosquitoes, detect water pollution before people drink it, and predict the course of invasive plants that dramatically alter landscapes and chug life-sustaining water from rivers.

"The technology has profound implications," said Deborah Estrin, a computer-science professor at UCLA who is the director of the Center for Embedded Network Sensing. The James Reserve is a partner of the center, which was established in 2002 when it won $40 million in funding from the National Science Foundation. Of that, $4 million went to the reserve, Hamilton said.

The reserve, Estrin said, is playing a crucial role in helping to evaluate the high-tech gadgets and how they work in the outside world.

Named for the Canadian-born outdoors enthusiast and educator Harry James, who donated the land to the University of California in 1966, the reserve offers a prime location for such a bold experiment.

Terry Pierson / The Press-Enterprise

Tom Unwin, of Idyllwild, collects data on a computer at the James San Jacinto Mountain Reserve.

Putting Birds to the Test

"Birds seem to know this stuff," Hamilton said. "We're trying to test whether they really do."

Soon microphones will be strung up among pines punctured with hundreds of holes so scientists can hear the unique calls of their batterer -- acorn woodpeckers -- and understand what the squawking critters are saying.

To take advantage of technology that allows observations without scaring animals with human noises, an endangered frog species soon could be reintroduced near Indian Creek, Hamilton said.

Tiny sensors scattered throughout the reserve pick up on the weather -- temperature, humidity, wind, rain, lightning and even how cool air sweeps into the canyon at night.

"It's a subtle but important change ecologically," Hamilton said, explaining that the cool air can trigger seedlings to sprout.

"That's kind of the downside -- we'll be spending too much time staring at computer screens," said Allen of UCR.

A plant pathologist, Allen's project focuses on how much air pollution, mainly from automobiles, soaks into the soil and groundwater, and how much is sucked up by plants.

"This give us the ability to see exactly what processes occur," Allen said. "We can determine whether the human impacts are changing the direction of the ecosystem or simply being swallowed up by it."

While it may take the fun out of science to let the high-tech gadgets do the outdoor work -- it will speed up the collection of data that could take years. While scientists would now take a root or plant out of the environment and back to the lab to analyze it, they can now observe it in its natural state, Allen said.

William Swenson, a UCR doctoral student working on Allen's project, said there is a benefit to keeping scientists inside their labs.

"This way we don't disturb the ecosystem," he said.

Swenson, on a crisp, sunny morning, hauled a heavy, cylindrically shaped camera up the canyon's steep hills. While he now drops the camera into underground tubes to take microscopic photographs of root growth, he won't have to do that much longer.

Soon, the camera will stay put in the tube, becoming automated like everything else.

Being the test ground for using high-tech equipment in the outdoors has not always been a pretty experiment.

Trees have fallen onto equipment, insects have squeezed into it and, in one case, a deer got tangled in rope strung around a group of ferns to give perspective on the plants' growth.

Mike Taggart, the reserve's senior development engineer, said the fallen rope was discovered after he stopped getting sensor readings at a computer in an office at the reserve.

"The deer was long gone, but we found the hoof prints," he said.

In two cases, snakes slithered up poles used to support bird-nesting boxes where infrared cameras document the birds' every move. Anyone can view the bird nests on the Internet.

'Snake in a Bird Box'

"I got an e-mail from a guy in New Jersey saying there was a snake in a bird box," Hamilton said. "By the time we got there, he was eating the last hatchling."

So Taggart modified the poles, adding a warped saucer below the box to prevent the snakes from reaching the nests. So far, so good, he said.

The introduction of high-tech gadgets to the otherwise serene setting that is so remote it operates on solar power and water pumped from a well may seem contrary to the teachings of Harry James.

The author, conservationist and educator, along with his wife, Grace, ran a private school for boys that often used the outdoors and the reserve as a learning experience.

James built his retirement home in a cabin at the reserve where Hamilton now lives.

But Hamilton said James, who died in 1978 and whose ashes were scattered on the reserve, wouldn't be too disappointed.

James, he said, was a gregarious chap who was enthralled with the development of film technology during Hollywood's silent era.

James worked as an assistant director and frequently took cameras to document his outdoor explorations across the West.

"He'd be totally embracing of it," Hamilton said.

Reach Jennifer Bowles at (951) 368-9548 or jbowles@pe.com