Fluctuations of charged particle number are studied in the canonical ensemble. In the infinite volume limit the fluctuations in the canonical ensemble are different from the fluctuations in the grand canonical one. Thus, the well-known equivalence of both ensembles for the average quantities does not extend for the fluctuations. In view of the possible relevance of the results for the analysis of fluctuations in nuclear collisions at high energies, a role of the limited kinematical acceptance is studied.

The multiplicity distributions of hadrons produced in central nucleus-nucleus collisions are studied within the hadron-resonance gas model in the large volume limit. The microscopic correlator method is used to enforce conservation of three charges -baryon number, electric charge, and strangeness -in the canonical ensemble. In addition, in the micro-canonical ensemble energy conservation is included.

The charged hadron multiplicity fluctuations are considered in the canonical ensemble. The microscopic correlator method is extended to include three conserved charges: baryon number, electric charge and strangeness. The analytical formulae are presented that allow to include resonance decay contributions to correlations and fluctuations. We make the predictions for the scaled variances of negative, positive and all charged hadrons in the most central Pb+Pb (Au+Au) collisions for different collision energies from SIS and AGS to SPS and RHIC.