Numerous experts including ecologists, geneticists, paleontologists and climatologists, investigate the response of terrestrial organisms to changes in their environment. The volume comprises an introductory and a final chapter by the editors as well as another 35 contributions. These are divided into six sections: 1. past environmental changes - the late-Quaternary; 2. spatial responses to past changes; 3. mechanisms enabling spatial responses; 4. evolutionary responses to past changes; 5. mechanisms enabling evolutionary responses; 6. predicted future environmental changes and simulated responses. The overwhelming and unanimous conclusion of all contributors is that forecasted global environmental changes pose a severe threat to the integrity of ecosystems worldwide and to the survival of at least some species.

Inhalt
Section 1 Past environmental changes the late Quaternary.- Past environmental changes: Characteristic features of Quaternary climate variations.- Modelling late-Quaternary palaeoclimates and palaeobiomes.- Section 2 Spatial responses to past changes.- Spatial response of plant taxa to climate change: A palaeoecological perspective.- The response of New Zealand forest diversity to Quaternary climates.- Character of rapid vegetation and climate change during the late-glacial in southernmost South America.- Holocene tree migration rates objectively determined from fossil pollen data.- Flora and vegetation of the Quaternary temperate stages of NW Europe: Evidence for large-scale range changes.- The response of beetles to Quaternary climate changes.- Fossil Coleoptera assemblages in the Great Lakes region of North America: Past changes and future prospects.- The response of Coleoptera to late-Quaternary climate changes: Evidence from north-east France.- The spatial response of mammals to Quaternary climate changes.- The spatial response of non-marine Mollusca to past climate changes.- Section 3 Mechanisms enabling spatial responses.- Reinterpreting the fossil pollen record of Holocene tree migration.- Mechanisms of vegetation response to climate change.- Plant invasions: Early and continuing expressions of global change.- Invading into an ecologically non-uniform area.- Migratory birds and climate change.- Tree demography and migration: What stand-level measurements can tell about the response of forests to climate change.- Structural changes in the forest-tundra ecotone: A dynamic process.- Modelling the structural response of vegetation to climate change.- Section 4 Evolutionary responses to past changes.- Species' habitats in relation to climate,evolution, migration and conservation.- The evolutionary response of vertebrates to Quaternary environmental change.- The weight of internal and external constraints on Pupilla muscorum L. (Gastropoda: Stylommatophora) during the Quaternary in Europe.- Late Quaternary extinction of large mammals in Northern Eurasia: A new look at the Siberian contribution.- Section 5 Mechanisms enabling evolutionary responses.- Variation in plant populations: History and chance or ecology and selection?.- Genetics and adaptation to climate change: A case study of trees.- Climate change and the reproductive biology of higher plants.- Space and time as axes in intraspecific phylogeography.- Migratory birds: Simulating adaptation to environmental change.- Terrestrial Invertebrates and climate change: Physiological and life-cycle adaptations.- Section 6 Predicted future environmental changes and simulated responses.- Forecast changes in the global environment: What they mean in terms of ecosystem responses on different time-scales.- The biogeographic consequences of forecast changes in the global environment: Individual species' potential range changes.- Gap models, forest dynamics and the response of vegetation to climate change.- Natural migration rates of trees: Global terrestrial carbon cycle implications.- Seasonal features of global net primary productivity models for the terrestrial biosphere.- General discussion and workshop conclusions.- Predicting the response of terrestrial biota to future environmental changes.- List of Workshop Participants.