Karen Oberhauser, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum and professor of entomology at the UWM, will present a talk titled "Monarchs in a Changing World: Conservation of an Iconic Insect," at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 13, in Valders Hall of Science Room 206 on the Luther College campus.

Open to the public with no charge for admission, the event is part of Luther's biology colloquium series.

Oberhauser's talk will focus on the status of the monarch butterfly, which is currently under review by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for possible listing as an endangered or threatened species. Over the past 20 years, the eastern North American migratory population of this easily identifiable and well-known species has experienced a dramatic decline due to a variety of factors. Oberhauser's talk will focus on the Monarch's current status and conservation efforts to help this species continue to survive and thrive.

Having founded the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project in 1996, Oberhauser has served as the director for more than 20 years. She's on the editorial board of the Citizen Science: Theory and Practice journal and is on the board of advisors for the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation since 2014. Through her research, she's developed a Monarchs in the Classroom science education program.

Oberhauser received a Bachelor of Science in biology from Harvard University in 1979. She received her master's in natural science education from UWM in 1981 and a Ph.D. in ecology and behavioral biology from the University of Minnesota in 1989.

A national liberal arts college with an enrollment of 2,050, Luther offers an academic curriculum that leads to the Bachelor of Arts degree in more than 60 majors and pre-professional programs. For more information about Luther visit the college's website: http://www.luther.edu.