After a nationwide competition involving more than 100 universities, the University of California, Davis, has been selected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to become one of four exploratory environmental research centers, with the potential for $9 million in federal funding over a 9-year period. UC Davis will be home to the EPA-sponsored Center for Ecological Health Research, which will coordinate studies of the many factors -- such as toxic substances, drought, salinity, temperature and introduction of non-native species -- that can stress ecosystems. "We'll be studying parts of several ecosystems including the Sacramento River, the Delta, Clear Lake, Central Valley orchards and several Sierra Nevada forests and lakes," said Dennis Rolston, director for the new UC Davis center and a professor of land, air and water resources. Associate directors for the center will be Fumio Matsumura, a professor of environmental toxicology, and Charles Goldman, a professor of environmental studies. The three other campuses selected by EPA as environmental research centers are the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Maryland and Michigan Technological University. Rolston said the new center will integrate various campus research projects that address the issue of stressed ecosystems. It will include 35 UC Davis researchers from 12 different departments in the School of Veterinary Medicine and in the colleges of Engineering, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and Letters and Science. "The data we collect and the information we obtain should be of great value to policy-makers and to state and federal scientists," Rolston said. "We hope that the methodologies developed will be helpful in determining the health of ecosystems in California and throughout the nation." He also noted that the center will provide valuable learning experiences for the many graduate students who will serve as research assistants on the projects. In addition, an emergency response team of UC Davis scientists will also be organized to lend their expertise during environmental catastrophes such as last year's train derailment near Dunsmuir, Calif., which resulted in the spill of toxic chemicals into the Sacramento River. "The team will give us the opportunity to serve the state and to develop some very interesting sets of data that might not otherwise be available," Rolston said. He attributes UC Davis' success in obtaining the center to the campus's established research strengths in the areas of ecology and toxicology, as well as in investigations of the environmental fate of contaminants. UC Davis also is the lead campus in a UC systemwide ecotoxicology program, funded by the UC Toxic Substances Research and Teaching Program. Although UC Davis has been officially named as a center, Rolston said the campus must now apply for federal funds, a process that may take two to three months.