How did the Caatinga, the largest neotropical dry forest, disappear from view? A response to Hardy et al. (2024)

Abstract

A recent global systematic review of invasive plants in tropical dry forests published by Restoration Ecology has unfortunately misrepresented the dry forest ecosystems in Tropical America, completely missing the Caatinga biome, the largest dry forest found on the continent, as well as large areas of other South American dry forests, despite the information published about these dry forests having been available in the literature for many decades. The species list provided is compared with a purpose-built online database to evaluate whether the inaccurate representation of the dry forests on the American continent reflects its completeness and usefulness for the scientific community and restoration practitioners alike.