KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii — Hundreds of scientists will gather this week on the Big Island to evaluate the health of ecosystems in Hawaii and other Pacific islands.

Researchers attending the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Pacific Division plan to explore critical facets of island science, from the mass extinction of Hawaiian land snails and threats to other flora and fauna to the prospects for increased U.S.-Asia research collaboration.

Sessions also will highlight health problems shared by indigenous people from the Arctic and Hawaii and Palmyra Atoll, a 700-acre spread of islets in the Central Pacific, just north of the equator.

"What's exciting to me is that the meeting will focus on Hawaii and other Pacific islands and what's happening as a result of introduced species and global climate change," said Pacific Division President Terrence L. Gosliner of the California Academy of Sciences. "It's important to bring attention to a place like Hawaii, where such a high degree of the indigenous flora and fauna is critically endangered."

The Pacific Division meeting usually draws a large contingent of young scientists and science students. This year's event at Hawaii Preparatory Academy in Waimea has a number of programs aimed at students, including poster sessions and an awards ceremony recognizing outstanding research by student scientists.

"It is a wonderful opportunity for students, teachers and scientists to participate in a major scientific meeting on the Big Island," said Roger Christianson, a biologist at Southern Oregon University and the division's executive director. "We look forward to welcoming registrants from throughout the United States and many foreign countries as they come to share their research."

Founded in 1848, AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society and the publisher of the journal Science, which has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world with an estimated total readership of 1 million.