Chenopod shrubland communities are among the most extensively studied plant communities in Australia. They occupy large areas of Mediterranean southern Australia that are dominated by winter rainfall, and support a rich array of perennial and annual shrubs, grasses and forbs. The community dominants, Atriplex and Maireana are important for providing landscape stability, forage production for livestock during droughts, and habitat for animals and understorey plant species. The landscape-level distribution of the main chenopod shrub species is driven largely by soil depth and texture, which control the availability of soil moisture. Differences in microtopography and site history determine distribution of individual shrubs. Chenopod shrubs are facilitated by longer-lived perennial plants such as Acacia, and themselves act as nurse plants for annual species by altering soil physical and chemical properties beneath their canopies. The dominant shrubs Atriplex and Maireana spp. are relatively resistant to low levels of livestock grazing, and the groundstorey plant response to grazing varies markedly with plant community type. Substantial overgrazing since European settlement has resulted in large changes, generally reductions, in the health, density and distribution of chenopod shrublands, and the current community status is poor. State-and-Transition models suggest that recovery of the community dominants after overgrazing is protracted and costly. Forecast reductions in winter rainfall over large areas of the range of the chenopod shrublands will place more stress on the community dominants and likely accelerate changes in plant community composition.