The Link Between Habitat Suitability and Landscape Connectivity in a Changing Climate: A Bibliometric Assessment

Species distribution models (SDMs) estimate how climate change may alter habitat suitability. Connectivity models quantify how landscape structure facilitates or constrains species movement among habitat patches. However, links between the two approaches are uncertain. This study assessed their integration and the use of SDM outputs in connectivity analyses. Records from 2010 to 2025 were retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science. The records were grouped into three corpora: SDM-only, connectivity-only, and integrated. Publication trends were compared with negative-binomial models. Concept dictionaries identified main themes, and pathway classification distinguished forms of methodological integration. Of 5715 records, only 244 integrated both approaches (5.3% of the SDM literature; 17.9% of the connectivity literature). The integrated corpus increased by 21.7% per year, faster than connectivity-only (13.9%; p = 0.001) but comparable to SDM-only (19.1%; p = 0.266). Integrated records formed a larger share of the connectivity literature than of the SDM literature in all 16 years (median difference: 11.2 percentage points; p < 0.001); because the two shares have a common numerator and unequal denominators, this contrast describes the relative weight of integrated work in each literature and does not by itself establish the direction of methodological transfer. Metadata consistent with the use of projected habitat-suitability surfaces as a connectivity input were identified in 38.1% of integrated records. The strongest keyword link paired SDMs with landscape connectivity (n = 61), but this pair is imposed by the search vocabulary; among pairs not required by the query, SDM concepts linked most often to habitat fragmentation and to dispersal or range shifts (n = 29 each). Despite the rapid expansion of the literature, methodological integration is still limited. Stronger links require explicit and transparent transfer of SDM outputs into corridor, resistance, and network models.