Ramos, Flavio Nunes, de Araujo, Matheus Lima, da Silva Assis, Isabella, Basilio, Geicilaine Alves, Barbosa, Daniel Elias Ferreira, Correa, Tabata Alves, Delgado, Camila Nardy, Furtado, Samyra Gomes, Marquez, Gonzalo, Soares, Jéssica Severiano, Yañez, Agustina, Silva, Sandro Menezes, Neto, Luiz Menini, and Elias, João Pedro Costa
The South America Dry Diagonal (SADD) is the most extensive and continuous portion of dry vegetation on the continent, characterised by lower rainfall and a marked dry season. Epiphytes are very poorly known and understudied in this area, even though they represent a high proportion of plant diversity in South America. Here, we compiled a dataset of epiphyte records from the SADD. The compiled epiphyte records date from 1859 to 2021, covering all four SADD domains, four countries, and 24 ecoregions. We utilised two databases for life form classification: Epilist and Brazil Flora Group. Our dataset contains 41,039 records distributed among 1119 epiphyte and hemiepiphyte species belonging to three main groups: angiosperms, ferns, and lycophytes. The SADD domains host a high number of unique species in each domain, with the Cerrado and Caatinga regions serving as primary hosts for the majority of species in the SADD dataset. Despite notable differences in species composition among domains, the least significant differences were observed between the Caatinga and Cerrado, as well as between the Chaco and the Pantanal. Orchidaceae, Bromeliaceae, and Polypodiaceae families exhibited the highest species diversity within the region. However, the species containing the highest number of specimens collected varied considerably among the domains. Herein, we also outlined some inconsistencies in the life-form classification across taxonomic bases, acknowledging the challenges of categorising epiphyte species while considering their intraspecific life-form variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]