Dawn above the Steele/Burnand Anza-Borrego Desert Research Cen­ter, the newest site in the UC Nat­ural Reserve Sys­tem. Photo credit: Daniel Anderson

A his­toric club­house amid the arid bad­lands and cacti of the Col­orado Desert is the newest addi­tion to the UC Nat­ural Reserve Sys­tem. The Steele/Burnand Anza-Borrego Desert Research Cen­ter will pro­vide stu­dents and researchers with access to adja­cent Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

The reserve includes an airy for­mer coun­try club on nearly four acres sit­u­ated at the edge of the town of Bor­rego Springs. The prop­erty was acquired by a gift from Audrey Steele Bur­nand, who has fam­ily ties to the par­cel. Her father, Alphonse Bur­nand, com­mis­sioned archi­tect William Kesling to design the Stream­line Mod­erne club­house in the 1940s.

Donated by Audrey Steele Bur­nand, the prop­erty is the site of a for­mer coun­try club built in the 1940s. Photo credit: Daniel Anderson

Steele Burnand’s gift will also help fund the expan­sion and oper­a­tion of the build­ing. Dorm rooms for up to 24 grad­u­ate stu­dents and longer-term hous­ing for sci­en­tists con­duct­ing exten­sive research will be added. Reserve build­ings will pro­vide sci­en­tists, other researchers, and stu­dents with a place to sleep, shower, cook, and con­duct lab­o­ra­tory work within the extreme desert envi­ron­ment. The reserve is also within a two-hour drive of the city of San Diego, mak­ing it rel­a­tively con­ve­nient to visit.

The site con­sti­tutes the 37th reserve in the UC Nat­ural Reserve Sys­tem. “This new reserve is the result of much hard work, per­se­ver­ance, and pro­found ded­i­ca­tion by those who under­stand the impor­tance of the Nat­ural Reserve Sys­tem,” says Peggy Fiedler, direc­tor of the UC Nat­ural Reserve Sys­tem. “In par­tic­u­lar, Alex Glazer, emer­i­tus direc­tor of the NRS, and Rick Ray­burn, the Park Service’s retired chief of nat­ural resource man­age­ment, deserve a great deal of credit for this reserve, which helps to keep NRS rel­e­vant into the twenty-first century.”

The Steele Bur­nand Desert Research Cen­ter will pro­vide vis­it­ing fac­ulty and stu­dents with easy access to the 615,000 acres of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Photo credit: Kath­leen M. Wong

The reserve will be admin­is­tered by UC Irvine. Diane Pataki, direc­tor of the UC Irvine Cen­ter for Envi­ron­men­tal Biol­ogy, will serve as the reserve’s fac­ulty direc­tor. “This build­ing is per­fect; it will be our home base for research of all kinds,” said biol­o­gist Pataki, who worked for five years to set up a research sta­tion in Bor­rego Springs. “We’re so lucky to be able to take advan­tage of the oppor­tu­nity to get this property.”

Through a coop­er­a­tive agree­ment with Cal­i­for­nia State Parks and the Anza Bor­rego Foun­da­tion, the reserve will offer stu­dents and researchers access to California’s largest state park. The 615,000 acres of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park encom­pass native fan palm oases, piñon pine-juniper forests, and even high ele­va­tion white fir stands. The park also shel­ters the unusual ele­phant tree (Burs­era micro­phylla) more typ­i­cal of Baja Cal­i­for­nia, and the largest pop­u­la­tion of endan­gered desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canaden­sis nel­soni) in the United States. Arche­o­log­i­cal sites within the park fea­ture pet­ro­glyphs, pic­tographs, and other arti­facts left by the Kumeyaay and Cahuilla peoples.

UC Irvine pro­fes­sor of biol­ogy Diane Pataki will be the fac­ulty direc­tor of the reserve. Photo credit: Daniel Anderson

The reserve will encour­age the study of envi­ron­men­tal and eco­log­i­cal prob­lems in the region. For exam­ple, cli­mate change mod­els indi­cate the Sono­ran Desert will expe­ri­ence major shifts in water avail­abil­ity, mak­ing the area a mag­net for global change research. Ground­wa­ter pump­ing from local aquifers is low­er­ing the water table fur­ther, attract­ing the inter­est of sci­en­tists seek­ing to con­duct hydro­logic mod­el­ing and test remote sens­ing equip­ment. The area’s extremely hot con­di­tions make it a good site to develop alter­na­tive energy tech­nolo­gies, while its pro­fu­sion of wildlife offers fer­tile ground for nat­ural his­tory studies.

The UC Nat­ural Reserve Sys­tem is a net­work of pro­tected nat­ural areas through­out Cal­i­for­nia. Its 37 sites include more than 135,000 acres, mak­ing it the largest university-administered reserve sys­tem in the world. Most major state ecosys­tems are rep­re­sented, from coastal tide­pools to inland deserts, and lush wet­lands to Sierra Nevada forests. The reserves also serve as a gate­way to more than a mil­lion acres of pub­lic lands. Founded in 1965 to pro­vide undis­turbed envi­ron­ments for research, edu­ca­tion, and pub­lic ser­vice, the Nat­ural Reserve Sys­tem con­tributes to the under­stand­ing and wise stew­ard­ship of the earth.