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Pastoral traditional knowledge is gaining recognition for its adaptability and role in enhancing the resilience of pastoral communities. To deepen our understanding of how this knowledge system demonstrates adaptive characteristics, we employ a functional lens to examine its dynamic nature in this systematic review. Our analysis, based on insights from 152 case studies worldwide, shows that this knowledge system has various domains and serves diverse functions, including ecological, economic, and socio-cultural functions, with further subfunctions. Ecologically, it primarily boosts climate resilience and adaptation; economically, it supports herd health and productivity; and socio-culturally, it preserves cultural identities and heritage. Furthermore, our findings highlight that each knowledge domain shows multifunctional characteristic. Our analysis also helps identify common functions across eight knowledge domains, each contributing to areas like sustainable resource management and climate adaptation, though to varying degrees.