Research in the Kostomuksha State Nature Reserve (Russia) and other Protected Areas of Northern Europe

Protected Areas (PAs) perform essential biological and landscape diversity conservation functions. They also serve as nature labs and experimental grounds for various sorts of monitoring research around the world. An object for environmental co-operation between neighbouring countries is an international PA, such as the Finnish-Russian Friendship Nature Reserve with Kostomuksha State Nature Reserve as its component part. Research in its Russian part has been conducted by scientists from the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Russian universities and PAs in collaboration with their foreign colleagues. This special issue of the journal Nature Conservation Research celebrates an anniversary of the foundation of the international Friendship Nature Reserve. It reports some results and current data on the state of ecosystems and their components both in the Kostomuksha State Nature Reserve and in some other PAs of Russia and Finland.