Surveying Costa Rican Mushrooms Enter the tropical oak forests of Costa Rica with Field Museum Curator and Mycologist Dr. Greg Mueller and his research partners and discover the beauty and importance of mushrooms and other fungi. Greg started his research program in Costa Rica during 1986 and the research team has been working in six conservation areas (Amistad Caribe, Amistad Pacifico, Arenal, Guanacaste, Osa and Tempisque) since 1998 as a part of the Costa Rican National Biological Inventory. We chose these six conservation areas because they represent most of the ecosystems in the country and contain most of the country’s plant and animal species, including many that are known only from the region (endemic). Knowledge of the macrofungi that grow in these areas is minimal. Through the Costa Rican survey we are obtaining information about what species are a part of each type of forest environment (diversity and composition), how they are distributed throughout the survey area (biogeography), and which fungi grow with what trees (host specificity). The purpose of the survey is to discover, document and study as many types of macrofungi (mushrooms, puffballs, bracket fungi and boletes) as possible so that information on these important organisms can be used by land managers and conservation biologists, included in future research projects, and be incorporated in education programs for school students and life-long learners. So far, the team has made over 2000 collections and identified over 600 of these species! But what’s so important about studying mushrooms? Read on and find out… Mushrooms have great ecological and economic importance. Contribution of the Survey Biogeography and The Great American Interchange How do you get it done? Special Thanks * introducción a la expedición en español