README file for data for "Interactive effects of drought and edge exposure on old-growth forest understory species" Dataset 1: Site level - incl. drought indices Site_ID - Site number Betecknings_ID - Woodland Key Habitat ID according to the Swedish Forestry Board WGS84_lat - Latitude, geographical reference system WGS84 WGS84_lon - Longitude, geographical reference system WGS84 Object_Size - Size in hectare for the woodland key habitats (obtained from the Swedish Forestry Board) Standing_dead_wood num - The number of standing dead trees > 30cm dbh Dead_logs_num - The number of laying dead logs > 30cm dbh Dead_wood_total_num - The sum of laying and standing dead wood Canopy cover% - The percentage canopy cover in each site, based on 5 hemisperical photographs processed in ImageJ with Hemisperical 2.0 package High pH bark trees present - Presence of trees with high-pH bark (such as Populus tremula L. and Salix caprea L.) Strong edge% - The percentage of the site subjected to strong edge effects (see more in methods section of the paper for the assumptions) Weak edge% - The percentage of the site subjected to weak edge effects (see more in methods section of the paper for the assumptions) Edge_exposure% - The sum of strong and weak edge effects summer_precipitation_2018 mm - Total precipitation during the whole summer of 2018 (1st May - August 31st) derived from the HIPRAD dataset (see mor in methods section) Average_summer_precipitation(2010-2017) mm - Average precipitation during the summer (1st May - August 31st) over 2010 - 2017, derived from the HIPRAD dataset Precipitation_extreme_period mm - Precipitation during the extreme drought period during the summer of 2018 (22nd June - 27th July), when precipitation was nearly absent for 36 days in some areas of central Sweden, derived from HIPRAD dataset Precipitation_priorafter mm - The summed precipitation before and after this extreme drought period in ii (1st May - 21st June and 28th July - 31st August), derived from the HIPRAD dataset GDD num days - Growing degree days, measured as days with mean temperatures over 5°C over 10 years, with a high (50 m) spatial resolution (Meineri & Hylander, 2017). Dataset 2: species coverage by site matrix Site_ID - Site number Betecknings_ID - Woodland Key Habitat ID according to the Swedish Forestry Board High pH bark trees present - Presence of trees with high-pH bark (such as Populus tremula L. and Salix caprea L.) Species columns - Species acronyms are based on the first three letters of the genus part and the first three letters of the species part of their scientific names, for example Goodyera repens = GooRep (full names can be found in Appendix Table S1). the numbers indicate the cover (dm2) divided by object size (ha) for the species. Dataset 3: Species richness of the different groups at sitelevel Site_ID - Site number Other columns: The number of species in total, and based on substrate affiliation and organism group. Dataset 4: Species richness at subplot level within sites Site_ID - Site number Betecknings_ID - Woodland Key Habitat ID according to the Swedish Forestry Board Gridcel - Gridcel number within each site Grid_ID - ID for each gridcel within each site Gridcell_Size - Gricell size in m2 Species_rich - Number of species at each gridcell Dataset 5: Presence and coverage of the four common species at site level Species acronyms are based on the first three letters of the genus part and the first three letters of the species part of their scientific names, for example Goodyera repens = GooRep (full names can be found in Appendix Table S1). Site_ID - Site number Betecknings_ID - Woodland Key Habitat ID according to the Swedish Forestry Board Species_cover - The cover in dm2 for each species at each site. Species_presence - The presence of a species a a site Species_fertile - Estimated % of the population that was fertile Dataset 6:Presence and coverage of the four common species at subplot level There are four datasets, one for each species. Species acronyms are based on the first three letters of the genus part and the first three letters of the species part of their scientific names, for example Goodyera repens = GooRep (full names can be found in Appendix Table S1). Site_ID - Site number Betecknings_ID - Woodland Key Habitat ID according to the Swedish Forestry Board Edge effect - The three categories of edge effects given to each gridcell (see more in methods section of the paper for the assumptions) Gridcell_size - The total area in m2 within each site subjected to each edge effect. The size of the gridcells subjected to strong, weak, interior conditions were summed respectively. Total_cover - The total estimated cover of a species in dm2 Coverage_per_area - The cover divided by the area Average fertile - Estimated percentage of fertile individuals