**2. Materials and Methods**

### *2.1. Study Sites*

The study was carried out in two forest sites, a logged and an adjacent unlogged stand dominated by *Quercus cerris* L., *Q. ilex* L. and *Q. pubescens* Willd. (Tuscany, Central Italy, WGS84: N 43.1851◦; E 11.3602◦) (Figure 1).

**Figure 1.** Map of the study sites. Taken from Paoli et al., [48] (modified).

Both study sites were located along a narrow valley with comparable orientation (north), soil type, tree age (average around 40 years, with scattered older trees) and composition, moisture, and distance from the closest stream. The density of the stems in the unlogged area was about 1100 ha−1, decreasing to 165 ha−<sup>1</sup> in the logged stand, with a consequent increase of sun irradiance all around retained-isolated trees (from 130–1100 to 900–1550 μmol m−<sup>2</sup> s−<sup>1</sup> PAR at noon) [49]. The logged stand (about 4.4 ha) was part of a local hotspot of *L. pulmonaria,* which had a patchy distribution and

colonized more than 1000 trees. Prior to logging, the overall biomass of *L. pulmonaria* in the study area was 15.8–19.6 kg ha−<sup>1</sup> [48]. Oak forests in Tuscany are mainly managed by a coppice system with standards and rotation cycles of 18–20 years [51]. Some stands with low management intensity have a longer logging cycle, which dates back to more than 40 years ago, as in our case. Since *L. pulmonaria* is not protected by law in Italy, logging operations did not take into account the presence of the species. The exposure lasted from March 2019 to March 2020. During the experimental (1-year) period, the study area was characterized by an average temperature of 14.1 ◦C, with the hottest period between June and August (average of daily maximum temperature 32 ◦C), the coldest in January and February (average of daily minimum temperature 0 ◦C); precipitation was about 920 mm, distributed over 72 rainy days (precipitation ≥1 mm), 18 of which occurred in November.
