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The notion that the conservation of wetlands in the world is too limited has gained a universal consensus because of the conflicts between their great value and the drastic decline in their quantity and quality. To mitigate these conflicts, ecological networks have integrated the hydrologic and biological connectivity of ecosystems. The basic elements of ecological networks, patches, and corridors, have been extracted to reflect the attributes of the hydrologic and biological connectivity of ecosystems. This paper reviews recent applications of network approaches to ecological conservation, focusing on their application in wetland ecosystems, and proposing a new perspective for wetland conservation. This review is limited to four aspects: first, the linkages between wetlands and ecological networks are determined by reviewing the development both of them; second, the two types of connectivity and their application that can be obtained from graphs or network models are discussed; third, common network analysis approaches, which can provide a theoretical basis to explore the optimal relationship between network structure and function, are summarized; finally, this paper presents the configuration and convergence characteristics of different types of wetland networks at multiple spatial scales. At the conclusion, suggestions for further work are presented.

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