Coral reefs provide vital ecological, economic, and cultural benefits, yet they face escalating pressures from climate change and local stressors. Projections indicate that only a small fraction of reefs will persist this century without rapid emissions reductions. Also, global investment in reef conservation and restoration remains far below what is required, with current funding estimated to be several‑fold lower than the levels needed to safeguard ecosystems that support hundreds of millions of people. This combination of a narrowing time window and a persistent financing gap makes efficient, connectivity‑aware management essential.
We use the spatially explicit 3,806‑reef simulation model ReefMod to examine how the condition and network position of healthy “source” reefs influence post‑disturbance recovery of connected “sink” reefs across the GBR. We quantify how different configurations of robust, well‑connected sources affect trajectories of coral cover and larval supply to degraded sinks following major disturbance events. We find that a subset of resilient, highly connected sources can substantially accelerate sink recovery, maximizing network‑level benefits. Finally, we compare these network‑scale gains with the expected local benefits at the intervention site to identify top‑priority locations that maximize overall ecological outcomes, positioning connectivity as a practical and cost‑effective lever for resilience‑focused management.