Paper: Small to large-scale patterns of ground-dwelling spider (Araneae) diversity across Northern Canada Authors: Loboda, S. and Buddle, C. Year of publication: 2018 Description: The README File describes variables for each file Files: 1. Loboda_2018_spider_raw_data.txt : Table of all specimens used for this publication including the sampling sites, trap type, date of sampling, and species name (following the nomenclature). Each row represent one individual. 2. Loboda_2018_coordinates_sites_environmental_variables.txt : Table with the geographical coordinates for each replicate (6 replicates per site) and all climatic and environmental variables used for analyses in the above publication. Variables: Ecoclimatic region: Arctic, Subarctic or North-Boreal according to Strong and Zoltai (1989) Site: HA=Hazen Lake, NU; IQ=Iqaluit, NU; CB=Cambridge Bay, NU; BA=Banks Island, NU; CH=Churchill, MB; SC=Schefferville, QC; TO=Tombstone mountains, YT; KU=Kugluktuk, NU; GB=Goose Bay, LB; MO=Moosonee, ON; YE=Yellowknife, NT and NW=Norman Wells, NT. Habitat: wet or mesic. Both habitat types were natural open areas. Mesic open sites were characterized by elevated topography and well-drained soils. Open wet habitats were water-saturated, with continuous cover of moss (including sphagnum), saxifrages and sedges like cotton grass. Replicate: Number between 1 and 3. There was six replicates per site, three in the mesic habitat and three in the wet habitat. Trap type: pan or pitfall. Each replicate was a grid of 9 pitfall traps and 9 yellow pan traps. Trap number: Number between 1 and 9. Date: Period of sampling. The first number is for the day, the roman number represents the month and the last number is for the year. Days: number of sampling days in total for the replicate. Climatic and environmental variables : mean.pd= average depth of active layer, sd.pd= standard deviation of active layer’ depth, maxveght=maximum vegetation height, gramcov=cover of graminoids, moscov=cover of mosses, lichcov=cover of lichens, forbcov=cover of forbsr, shrubcov=cover of shrubs, AMT= annual mean temperature of the site, maxT= maximum temperature of the warmest month of the site, minT= minimum temperature of the coldest month of the site, AP= annual precipitation, DJA0= degree days above zero at the site, DJB0= degree day below zero at the site. Values of environmental variables from the field (in bold) are an average of values from 5 or 6 traps per replicate