*4.1. Sexually Reproducing Lichen Species Had Always High Turnover*

The beta diversity analysis confirms the assumption that sexually reproducing species had a high turnover in the forests of the study area, regardless of the type of forest structure, both between old-growth and between non-old growth forests (hypotheses schematized in Figure 1b,d). Our outcomes are consistent with those found by various authors (see [37] for a review), and we can trace back the reasons behind this scenario to several factors:

