Data for: Comparing the effect of landscape context on vascular plant and bryophyte communities in a human-dominated landscape

Aims: It is important to understand the effect of landscape context on biological communities to predict how biodiversity will be affected on human-dominated landscapes. While many studies have tested the effects of landscape context on the species richness and composition of vascular plants, few have compared the responses of vascular plants and bryophytes on the same landscape. We sampled non-epiphytic bryophytes and vascular plants in 184 plots to test whether three landscape context factors measured four years or four decades previously could predict bryophyte or vascular plant species richness and composition after accounting for local factors.

Location: Temperate forests and oak savannahs, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

Methods: We used model selection and comparisons to test the effects of surrounding road density, total amount of forest, and distance to the nearest forest edge on species richness, species richness of non-disturbance-associated species, and com...