## 3 Results and Discussion
### Biosynthetic Gene Composition in Twenty-Three Annotated Fungal Genomes  
The basic statistics for all twenty-three studied genomes are provided in Table 4. According to BUSCO homology searches against the fungal dataset (fungi_odb9), most genomes were highly gene complete. We included only two genomes with completeness below 90%, namely _Alectoria sarmentosa_ (75.8%) and _Graphis scripta_ (88.6%). The number of predicted genes was in the range of 6756 to 11,072. The lowest number of predicted genes was observed for _Ramalina peruiana_ (most likely due to issues in the quality of the assembly given the lower sequencing depth of 2\(\times\)), and the highest number was observed for _Ecernia prunastri_ (Table 4). \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l r r r r r r r r r} \hline \hline
**Assembly** & \begin{tabular}{c} **No. of** \\ **Conigs** \\ \end{tabular} & \begin{tabular}{c} **Largest** \\ **Conigs** \\ \end{tabular} & \begin{tabular}{c} **Total Length** \\ **(Mb)** \\ \end{tabular} & \begin{tabular}{c} **GC (\%)** \\ \end{tabular} & \begin{tabular}{c} **NS0 (bp)** \\ \end{tabular} & \begin{tabular}{c} **N75 (bp)** \\ \end{tabular} & \begin{tabular}{c} **BUSCO** \\ **Completeness** (\%) \\ \end{tabular} & \
\begin{tabular}{c} **Genes** \\ **Predicted** \\ \end{tabular} &
\begin{tabular}{c} **Proteins** \\ **Predicted** \\ \end{tabular} \\ \hline _Alectoria_ & 915 & 400,628 & 39.9 & 40.22 & 93,085 & 44,808 & 75.8 & 8440 & 8406 \\ \hline _Bacidia_ & 24 & 3,530,911 & 33.1 & 44.67 & **1,807,239** & **1,552,797** & **95.8** & 8451 & 8400 \\ \hline _Bacidia rubella_ & 246 & 2,353,056 & 33.7 & 45.25 & **1,771,855** & **1,480,693** & **97.9** & 8773 & 8728 \\ \hline _Cladonia graci_ & 414 & 958,967 & 34.6 & 44.44 & 243,412 & 104,892 & **96.8** & 9215 & 9168 \\ \hline _Cladonia_ & 240 & 2,265,542 & 37.1 & 44.68 & **1,469,036** & **1,071,353** & **96.8** & 8183 & 8135 \\ \hline _Cladonia_ & 30 & 2,400,105 & 36.6 & 44.91 & **1,591,850** & **1,304,658** & **97.5** & 8357 & 8313 \\ \hline _Cladonia_ & 1008 & 751,829 & 35.6 & 45.46 & 273,041 & 142,056 & **98.2** & 9264 & 9218 \\ \hline _Cladonia_ & 2124 & 143,175 & 32.8 & 46.38 & 34,871 & 18,367 & **91.7** & 8706 & 8645 \\ \hline _Cyanoderma_ & 37 & 3,440,352 & 28.6 & 53.29 & **1,790,936** & **1,105,189** & **97.2** & 7946 & 7851 \\ \hline _Dibaems_ & 1369 & 352,342 & 35.2 & 47.02 & 70,496 & 37,098 & **97.9** & 9799 & 9756 \\ \hline _Endocarpon_ & 908 & 803,103 & 37.1 & 46.00 & 178,225 & 78,254 & **93.1** & 8446 & 8392 \\ \hline _Evernia prunastri_ & 277 & 732,541 & 40.3 & 48.97 & 264,454 & 154,311 & **97.9** & 11,072 & 10,979 \\ \hline _Graphis scripta_ & 1453 & 383,549 & 36.2 & 46.66 & 78,723 & 38,837 & 88.6 & 9808 & 9744 \\ \hline _Cyanodeling_ & 36 & 2,816,824 & 34.4 & 41.89 & **1,693,300** & **1,515,355** & **97.5** & 8062 & 8008 \\ \hline _Lasalia_ & 1619 & 615,827 & 41.2 & 51.28 & 145,035 & 51,438 & **97.9** & 8218 & 8162 \\ \hline _Lasalia_ & 43 & 3,307,933 & 32.9 & 51.67 & **1,808,250** & **1,551,388** & **98.2** & 6973 & 6936 \\ \hline _Lettharia_ & 161 & 2,188,364 & 52.2 & 39.57 & 666,803 & 377,091 & **92.0** & 9966 & 9890 \\ \hline _Lettharia_ & 31 & 3,031,725 & 49.2 & 38.73 & **2,098,233** & **1,574,492** & **96.2** & 9266 & 9206 \\ \hline _Pseudevernia_ & 46 & 3,053,396 & 37.7 & 47.86 & **1,178,799** & 859,355 & **97.2** & 9148 & 9082 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 4: Genome basics for twenty-three studied fungal genomes. We investigated the BGCs predicted in all twenty-three studied genomes that belong to different taxonomic groups and synthesize a plethora of secondary metabolites (Table 2; Table 4). Our results revealed a high number of BGCs, with an average of 48 clusters per genome. The smallest number was recovered in the genome of _Lasallia pustulata_ (26 BGCs), and the highest in _Evernia prunastri_ (86 BGCs), which agrees with the results reported by [PERSON] et al. based on 15 lichenized genomes [6]. In nearly half the genomes, NR-PKSs are more common than R-PKS (Table 2).