The Indonesian Throughflow (ITF) ,an important component of the global thermohaline conveyor,exerts a major control on global climate.The Western Australia Shelf located on the southeastern edge of the Indian-Pacific Warm Pool is an ideal area for investigation on history of variation in the ITF strength.Here we reconstruct low-resolution records of sea surface temperature,alkenone-producer communication and terrestrial plant organic input over the last 4 million years (Ma) ,based on analysis of alkenones and n-alkanes in 126 samples from marine sediment cores obtained from the Western Australia Shelf (sites U1459 ~ 1464,covering a latitudinal range of 28°~18°S) by the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 356.Sites U1459 ~U1460 are in the northern part of the Perth Basin and sites U1461 ~U1464 are in the Northern Carnarvon Basin and Roebuck Basin.The chronostratigraphic framework of all the cores is mainly based on the biostratigraphy (calcareous nannofossil and benthic foraminiferal assemblages) and magnetostratigraphy.According to our results,sea surface temperature at the Western Australia Shelf shows decreasing trend at 2 ~4Ma with some further cooling events,consistent with the temperature record in the nearby region and the global benthic delta~(18)O record.Over the last 1Ma,sea surface temperatures at the studied region increased,probably caused by the strengthening of the ITF.The alkenone C_(37)/C_38 records show no communication on alkenone-producers among northern,middle and southern sites at 1 ~4Ma,but intensive communication at 0~1Ma,resembling with the strengthening of the ITF over the last 1Ma.The organic input from terrestrial plants indicated by the ratio of long-chain and short-chain n-alkanes show different variations between southern and middle-to-northern sites,probably caused by regional moisture evolution responding to the climate forcing.Although weaken ITF strength at 2 ~2.5Ma reduced the moisture in the northern Australia continent,intensified ITF strength at 0 ~1Ma didn't lead to wet condition in the northern Australia continent,tentatively suggesting a change in the regional climatic forcing mechanism at those two periods.