Epiphytic lichens represent one of the most suitable indicators of forest continuity and management, especially in the context of ancient and old-growth forests. Nevertheless, they have not yet been included among Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) indicators to which Pan-European forest policy and governance refer. In addition, currently adopted SFM indicators are mainly designed for high forests rather than coppice forests, despite the fact that today this management system covers more than 10% of the total European forests. In this study we investigated these two issues by examining epiphytic lichen diversity in three coppice forest stands, located in the two Italian regions of Tuscany and Sardinia. In particular, we addressed: i) the role of lichen diversity as SFM indicator and ii) its relationship with consolidated and new SFM indicators dealing with structural, health, biodiversity, protective and socioeconomic functions. Multivariate Factor Analysis and Generalised Linear Models were adopted for data analysis. We found that lichen diversity and the frequency of single sensitive species were mainly related to the biodiversity of plants and fungi (Criterion 4), the health and vitality of the forests (Criterion 2) and their protective functions (Criterion 5). Furthermore, our results show that the lichen species highlighted by the models may represent suitable indicators in long-term studies, especially in relation to complex and interconnected aspects of sustainable forest management. Although our findings represent a first contribute to this issue, more in-depth researches will be needed to clarify further aspects of the complex interactions among SFM indicators in the context of coppice forests.

附生的地衣是森林连续性和管理的最合适的指标之一，尤其是在古老和古老的森林中。但是，它们尚未被纳入泛欧洲森林政策和治理所参考的可持续森林管理（SFM）指标中。此外，目前采用的可持续森林管理指标主要是针对高级森林而不是小灌木林，尽管事实上，该管理体系覆盖了欧洲森林总数的10％以上。在这项研究中，我们通过检查位于意大利托斯卡纳和撒丁岛两个地区的三个小林林的附生地衣多样性研究了这两个问题。我们特别指出：i）地衣多样性作为可持续森林管理指标的作用，以及ii）地衣多样性与涉及结构，健康，生物多样性，保护和社会经济功能的综合可持续森林管理指标和新的可持续森林管理指标之间的关系。采用多元因子分析和广义线性模型进行数据分析。我们发现地衣多样性和单一敏感物种的发生频率主要与植物和真菌的生物多样性（标准4），森林的健康和活力（标准2）及其保护功能（标准5）有关。此外，我们的结果表明，模型突出显示的地衣物种可能是长期研究中的合适指标，尤其是在可持续森林管理的复杂和相互关联方面。尽管我们的发现是对该问题的第一贡献，