Longterm Mushroom Monitoring in the Santa Cruz Mountains

As mushroom hunters, we enjoy traveling far and wide, bouncing from place to place and following the rains to stay with the season. But what happens when we focus on revisiting the same small areas whether there has been rain or not? And what if we take it a step further, and rather than just harvesting chanterelles or photographing the flashiest species, we take the time to pay attention to everything, counting individual fruitbodies and keeping track of changes from year to to year? Christian Schwarz undertook a project  to diligently quantify the mushrooms of the Santa Cruz Mountains over three years, supported by a grant from the Save the Redwoods League, and in 2020, some of his survey transects were burned in the CZU Lightning Complex fires. During this talk he shares the discoveries, lessons, and patterns that have emerged from this ambitious project.