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Many factors influence the diversity of macrofungi at a particular site (see “Factors Influencing Species Richness,” earlier in this chapter). Those factors include the nature of the habitat (eg, grassland or forest, natural or planted, early successional or mature), the diversity of plant species (particularly host plants), the diversity of substrata, geographic location (latitude and elevation), soils types, and climate. Site factors are compounded by the amount of natural and manmade disturbance, sitemanagement practices, and exposure to pollution. The protocols used in a study also have an impact on the observed diversity of macrofungi. Schmit and associates (in review) undertook a meta-data analysis of plot-based studies that measured the diversity of both macrofungi and trees. They performed two analyses on 25 studies involving a total of 184 plots located in North America, Europe, China, and Costa Rica. The first analysis determined that, although plots contained more macrofungi than trees, the macrofungi were neither more nor less widely distributed than tree species. The second analysis looked at the effects of sampling effort (plot size, number of years sampled, number of visits), tree diversity (number of tree species present), number of ectomycorrhizal tree species present, and the type of tree present (conifers versus hardwoods), and latitude on the number of macrofungal species present in the plot. Although sampling effort had a major impact on the diversity of macrofungi discovered at a particular site (in general, more taxa are found with an increased effort), habitat type and tree diversity played a larger role in explaining differences between …