KS diagram as a function of galaxy merger stage based on clump identification. From left to right and top to bottom, the merger stages are isolated galaxies (blue), galaxy pairs (red), early-stage mergers (orange), mid-stage mergers (magenta), and late-stage mergers (black). The black solid line represents the best fit for each dataset. The Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients (ρ_s) and the power-law indices (N) of the derived best-fit KS relations is at the top left of each panel. The grey dashed lines mark constant star formation efficiencies (SFE = Σ_SFR/Σ_H2).