A systematic review of the current state of marine functional connectivity research

Marine functional connectivity underpins biodiversity and ecosystem functions, ensuring resilience in marine and land-sea interface ecosystems. Research on this topic has advanced rapidly in recent decades, as reflected in the growing body of primary literature and the increasing number of reviews covering a variety of topics and methodologies. Here, we systematically extracted and analysed information from 215 reviews across the entire field to synthesize the current state of marine functional connectivity research, highlighting the main topics, methods, taxa, geographic areas, and future research priorities. Word co-occurrence and network analyses revealed imbalances in review topics, with certain habitats (e.g. coral reefs), taxa (e.g. fish), and geographic areas (e.g. North Atlantic) receiving disproportionate attention. These disparities likely arise from variations in funding, field site accessibility, public interest, and/or delays in adopting new concepts and methodologies. Research priorities were broadly grouped into 2 themes: (1) ‘Methods’, highlighting the need to integrate and advance sampling, modelling, and analysis techniques, and (2) ‘Ecology and Application’, stressing the need to understand connectivity drivers, particularly the impacts of climate change, and to integrate connectivity knowledge into marine conservation and management. There was also a third overarching theme emphasizing the importance of expanding spatial and temporal coverage of connectivity knowledge and data by embracing new technologies, growing collaborative networks and targeting understudied habitats, areas, and taxa. Tackling the identified research priorities will further improve our ability to quantify connectivity patterns and drivers, and facilitate efforts to actively apply this knowledge and data in marine management and conservation.