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CORVALLIS - Regional and global environmental issues will be explored by several prominent speakers at the 59th annual Biology Colloquium on April 16 at Oregon State University.

Titled "Ecosystems, Society and Environmental Change," the colloquium will be held from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the LaSells Stewart Center on the OSU campus. It is free and open to the public.

"The reporting of El Nino in recent months has focused attention on the extreme impacts that changes in the ocean and climate can have on society," said Mike Unsworth, director of the Center for Analysis of Environmental Change at OSU. "But what about the more subtle impacts that society may have on oceans, climate and the ecosystems they support? How well do we understand the risks of change, and how do we assess the economic and social implications?"

OSU speakers at the event will include Unsworth; President Paul Risser; Jane Lubchenco, distinguished professor of zoology; and Mark Abbott, professor of oceanic and atmospheric sciences.

Other speakers at the colloquium, which is one of the university's most prestigious and longest running annual lecture series, include:

• Ray Hilborn, professor of fisheries at the University of Washington, on the topic "Managing Fish Stocks in a Changing Environment: Moving from Risk Assessment to Risk Management"
• Walter Oechel, professor of biology at San Diego State University, on the topic "Terrestrial Ecosystems and Global Change: Can We Predict Responses?"
• Fakhri Bazzaz, professor of biology at Harvard University, on the topic "Who Shall Inherit the High CO2 World?"
• David Layton, assistant professor at the University of California, Davis, on the topic "The Economic Valuation of Ecosystems: The Ideal, the Reality, and the Possibilities"
• Steve Rayner, chief scientist at Battelle's Pacific Northwest Laboratories, on the topic "Applying Social Science in Environmental Change Research: The Current State of the Art"