We live in an era where it is critical to anticipate and actively manage regional social-ecological-systems and their provision of services, despite global change. We must structure our scientific efforts to improve our understanding of human-induced modifications of regional systems along with the affected ecosystem processes that determine turnover of materials, nutrient retention or loss, resource use efficiencies, and fluxes of carbon, water and nutrients. From agricultural and forestry perspectives, the understanding of ecophysiological regulation must remain a high priority since these processes play a key role in energy, carbon and water exchange, which then impact the function of ecosystems in chained together reaction sequences. A critical question is which ecophysiological regulation is most important to study in order to obtain new insight at scales relevant in resource management. Additionally, an improved perspective on ecophysiological acclimation is needed in order to predict response of landscape elements to climate change. The presentation will discuss ways in which detailed plot level ecophysiological studies may be included into analyses at larger scales and contribute to resource management efforts and sustainable yield of ecosystem services in our changing world.