In 2020, the Australian and New Zealand flux research and monitoring network, OzFlux, celebrated its 20 th anniversary by reflecting on the lessons learned through two decades of ecosystem studies on global change biology. OzFlux is a network not only for ecosystem researchers, but also for those ‘next users’ of the knowledge, information and data that such networks provide. Here, we focus on eight lessons across topics of cli...

As the ratio of carbon uptake to water use by vegetation, water‐use efficiency (WUE) is a key ecosystem property linking global carbon and water cycles. It can be estimated in several ways, but it is currently unclear how different measures of WUE relate, and how well they each capture variation in WUE with soil moisture availability. We evaluated WUE in an Acacia ‐dominated woodland ecosystem of central Australia at various s...

Large spatial and temporal gradients in rainfall and temperature occur across Australia. This heterogeneity drives ecological differentiation in vegetation structure and ecophysiology. We examined multiple leaf‐scale traits, including foliar 13 C isotope discrimination (Δ 13 C), rates of photosynthesis and foliar N concentration and their relationships with multiple climate variables. Fifty‐five species across 27 families were...

Savanna ecosystems comprise 22% of the global terrestrial surface and 25% of Australia (almost 1.9 million km 2 ) and provide significant ecosystem services through carbon and water cycles and the maintenance of biodiversity. The current structure, composition and distribution of Australian savannas have coevolved with fire, yet remain driven by the dynamic constraints of their bioclimatic niche. Fire in Australian savannas in...

Rainfall, temperature, and solar radiation are important climate factors, which determine crop growth, development and yield from instantaneous to decadal scales. We propose to identify year patterns of climate impact on yield on the basis of rain and non‐rain weather. There are inter‐related impacts of climatic factors on crop production within a specific pattern. Historical wheat yield data in Queensland during 1889–2004 wer...

It is important to investigate potential changes in temperature, precipitation and solar radiation for assessing the impacts of future climate change on agricultural production for specific regions. In this study, climate scenarios of precipitation, temperature and solar radiation for the North China Plain ( NCP ) were constructed in terms of stochastic daily weather sequences. A nonhomogeneous hidden Markov model ( NHMM ) was...

Rising atmospheric concentrations of CO 2 ( C a ) can reduce stomatal conductance and transpiration rate in trees, but the magnitude of this effect varies considerably among experiments. The theory of optimal stomatal behaviour predicts that the ratio of photosynthesis to transpiration (instantaneous transpiration efficiency, ITE ) should increase in proportion to C a . We hypothesized that plants regulate stomatal conductance...

A soil–plant–atmosphere model was used to estimate gross primary productivity (GPP) and evapotranspiration (ET) of a tropical savanna in Australia. This paper describes model modifications required to simulate the substantial C4 grass understory together with C3 trees. The model was further improved to include a seasonal distribution of leaf area and foliar nitrogen through 10 canopy layers. Model outputs were compared with a...