The fusion of real-time and time-series in-situ data streams, with airborne and satellite remote sensing scenes and models engineered for specific ecological scales, provides an extraordinary tool for monitoring, quantifying and ultimately forecasting the complex effects of a shifting climate on natural ecosystems. Collaborative engineering and biological research in the applications of multi-scale embedded networked sensors for ecology, based upon decades-long studies that began at the James Reserve and other institutions, are being developed for Blue Oak Ranch Reserve. Extraordinary new portable sensing systems engineered to increase the spatial extent of automated ecological measurements will continuously and adaptively monitor a spectrum of phenomenon -- ranging from soil microbial and fine scale root processes; to incremental fluctuations in life-history phenology of organisms (both plant and animal); and instantaneous calculations of net photosynthesis, respiration and carbon dynamics of the oak woodlands and grasslands in this wildland urban interface zone.  Data streams from in-situ below and above-ground sensors and imagers coupled with periodic multispectral satellite data from MODIS and Quickbird will provide a detailed window into the biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics that are most sensitive to both shifting climate and atmospheric deposition of pollutants, caused in part by an expanding and encroaching front of urbanization. Discoveries made by these monitoring and modeling systems will focus scientific research on the future state of these and other at-risk ecosystems, and are proposed to become an integral component of  a broad range of academic research investigations and local educational outreach programs.