Potential benefits of biodiversity corridors for fragmented mangrove ecosystems

Mangrove forest fragmentation poses a serious global threat to biodiversity, ecosystem services and ecological resilience. We argue that biodiversity corridors – whether biological, ecological or mixed-use – could help mitigate these impacts and support conservation efforts. Despite the pressing need, research on mangrove biodiversity corridors is very scarce, revealing a significant gap in conservation science. Drawing on observations from previous corridor studies done in coastal ecosystems, we hypothesize nine potential benefits that biodiversity corridors could provide for fragmented mangrove ecosystems. These include: i) supporting routine and migratory wildlife movement; ii) enabling genetic exchange; iii) maintenance of ecological processes; iv) enhancement of pollination and seed dispersal; v) provision of evacuation routes during natural disasters; vi) species recolonization and habitat recovery; vii) minimization of edge effects and isolation; viii) increased resilience to climate change; and ix) buffering against anthropogenic disturbances. We highlight the benefits of biodiversity corridors that should stimulate scientific discourse and encourage pilot projects to empirically test these descriptions and advance corridor implementation for fragmented mangrove ecosystems.