Climate Change Eects on Northern Terrestrial and Freshwater Ecosystems: Current status assessment U. Molau a, * , T.R. Christensen b , B. Forbes c , J.I. Holten d , G.W. Kling e , G.L. Vourlitis f a Botanical Institute, Evolutionary Botany, G oteborg University, Box 461, S-405 30 G oteborg, Sweden b Department of Ecology, Plant Ecology, Lund University, Ecology Building, S-223 62 Lund, Sweden c Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Box 122, SF-96101 Rovaniemi, Finland d Terrestrial Ecology Research, N-7350 Buvika, Norway e Department of Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA f Global Change Research Group, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182, USA Accepted 20 July 1998 Following the oral and poster presentations during the ``Climate Change Eects on Northern Terrestrial and Freshwater Ecosytems'' conference in Rovaniemi, Finland, 18±19, September 1997, a workshop with discussions in smaller groups fol- lowed by a plenum session was held on 20th Sep- tember. The group dicussions focussed on the state of knowledge among Nordic scientists and stu- dents of the impacts of climate change on northern terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems. The aim of the workshop session was to promote co-operation among Nordic scientists and to reach a consensus on recommendations to promote research in the area of climate change eects on a Nordic level. The IASC-adopted research plan FATE (Feed- backs and Arctic Terrestrial Ecosystems; Callag- han et al., 1996) was used as a model for the discussions. There were three concurrent working group sessions, re¯ecting the three main themes of the symposium: (1) Ecosystem dynamics and bio- diversity, (2) Plant ecophysiology, phenology and plant-soil interactions and (3) Carbon cycle and climate feedbacks. In the ®nal plenum session the participants agreed on the following statements and recommendations: Conclusions. From an international perspective, the Nordic countries show strong research eorts in topics related to climate change. Plant eco- physiology is generally better covered in terrestrial than in freshwater ecosystems, and the knowledge of ecosystem function and structure in northern lakes is insucient. In the boreal zone there is a long tradition of research in terrestrial and fresh- water ecosystems. Many long-term data series on climate and phenology exist in the region, partic- ularly for the boreal zone, and there are also good dendrochronological and palaeoecologial records. In the tundra zone, Nordic research projects and scientists participate in international networks, such as AMAP (the Arctic Monitoring and As- sessment Programme; see AMAP, 1997), ITEX Chemosphere: Global Change Science 1 (1999) 493±495 * Corresponding author. 1465-9972/99/$ ± see front matter Ó 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 1 4 6 5 - 9 9 7 2 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 4 1 - 0