Drought studies are often opportunistic and post hoc, where a drought fortuitously occurs during a research project that was not specifically designed to study the drought, but where researchers capitalised on the opportunity. These studies often lack focus on formulating and studying ‘drought specific’ research questions. By learning from observations during droughts, research gaps can be identified and drought specific questions can be formulated to be tested during future droughts. Therefore, in order to get a more holistic view of the ecology of drought, and in order to assist in formulating drought-related questions and/or hypotheses and identifying research gaps, we collected and collated observations and reflections from >50 persons who have lived and/or worked extensively in the Kruger National Park (KNP) and surrounding areas during the 2015/2016 drought. Many ecological lessons, interesting ideas, valuable insights and truly remarkable natural history observations were harnessed from these observations. We summarise them here to help prepare scientists in framing ideas on the functioning and role of droughts, and in designing research in anticipation of future droughts. These observations are not only valuable for scientists, but also for management. We reflect on lessons learned from previous droughts that led to changed management approaches that made the system more resilient during the recent drought. Although studies that focus on specific aspects of droughts are critical to enhance our understanding of droughts, narrative papers like this that cover many scales, taxa and processes can contribute to a broader synthesis and integration.

中文翻译：

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对稀树草原干旱自然历史的观察

干旱研究通常是机会主义和事后研究，在一个并非专门为研究干旱而设计的研究项目中偶然发生干旱，但研究人员利用了这个机会。这些研究通常缺乏对“特定干旱”研究问题的制定和研究。通过从干旱期间的观察中学习，可以确定研究差距，并可以制定干旱特定问题以在未来干旱期间进行测试。因此，为了更全面地了解干旱生态，并协助制定与干旱相关的问题和/或假设并确定研究差距，我们收集并整理了来自 > 50 人在 2015/2016 年干旱期间在克鲁格国家公园 (KNP) 及周边地区广泛生活和/或工作。从这些观察中汲取了许多生态课程、有趣的想法、宝贵的见解和真正非凡的自然历史观察。我们在此对它们进行总结，以帮助科学家准备好关于干旱的功能和作用的构想，并设计研究以预测未来的干旱。这些观察结果不仅对科学家有价值，对管理也很有价值。我们反思从以前的干旱中吸取的教训，这些教训导致管理方法的改变，使系统在最近的干旱中更具弹性。尽管关注干旱特定方面的研究对于增强我们对干旱的理解至关重要，