Nature conservation has shifted towards a climate change adaptation approach, in which expected species range shifts are increasingly considered. Facilitating species movements requires improving ecological connectivity across landscapes, and for these assessments, new and powerful approaches are emerging. One such approach is the use of geodiversity information as a proxy for biodiverse, resilient, and dispersal-enhancing areas. Although data on abiotic nature are routinely used in many connectivity assessments, geodiversity is not necessarily recognized by researcher due to non-explicit application of variables combined with vague definitions of terms. Here, we present a systematic literature review examining the role of geodiversity in ecological connectivity. We used the PRISMA method to review 89 research articles on the topic. Of these, 34% explicitly modeled connectivity and included geodiversity variables, while the remaining studies discussed or explored the potential effects of geodiversity on species movement and broader biodiversity patterns, without directly modeling connectivity. Our findings highlight the value of integrating geodiversity and the Conserving Nature’s Stage approach in both research and the management of connectivity and climate resilience. We identified that the key challenges hindering the widespread use of geodiversity information in biodiversity conservation stem from the limited adoption of the term outside geosciences and the lack of established quantitative metrics to explore the geodiversity-biodiversity relationship. Addressing these gaps could greatly enhance ecological connectivity assessments, thereby improving conservation outcomes. After all, geodiversity is the abiotic counterpart to biodiversity, and together these two components form the dynamics of nature that we aim to conserve.

1. Introduction Ongoing climate change poses an increasing threat to biodiversity. To avoid decline or extinction, species need to either adjust or adapt to new environmental conditions or track their climatic niches across space. In sessile organisms such as plants, phenotypic plasticity can help maintain fitness in variable and even novel environmental conditions and is therefore likely to play an important role in allowing them to survive climate change, particularly in the short term. Understanding a species’ response to rising temperature is crucial for planning well-targeted and cost-effective conservation measures. 2. Methods We sampled seeds of three Hypericum species (H. maculatum, H. montanum, and H. perforatum), from a total of 23 populations originating from different parts of their native distribution areas in Europe. We grew them under four different temperature regimes in a greenhouse to simulate current and predicted future climatic conditions in the distribution areas. We measured flowering start, flower count, and subsequent seed weight, allowing us to study variations in the thermal plasticity of flowering phenology and its relation to fitness. 3. Results Our results show that individuals flowered earlier with increasing temperature, while the degree of phenological plasticity varied among species. More specifically, the plasticity of H. maculatum varied depending on population origin, with individuals from the leading range edge being less plastic. Importantly, we show a positive relationship between higher plasticity and increased flower production, indicating adaptive phenological plasticity. 4. Synthesis The observed connection between plasticity and fitness supports the idea that plasticity itself may be adaptive. This study underlines the need for information on plasticity for predicting species’ potential to thrive under global change and the need for studies on whether higher phenotypic plasticity is currently being selected for as natural populations experience a rapidly changing climate.