Conservation of unmanaged pan-European forest landscapes as a priority natural heritage for epiphytic lichens at different ecological and biogeographical scales - A review

The European forestry landscape represents an important priority for biodiversity and needs adequate management strategies. The main focus of this review is the importance of European forest areas for epiphytic lichen richness under the impact of different management practices assessed in the biogeographical and ecological regions of Europe. In total, 88 scientific articles were reviewed (based on the first author’s archive and by query in Web of Science), which examined epiphytic lichen richness within managed and unmanaged European forests. Biogeographical and ecological regions of Europe were not taken into account in the reviewed articles, but we used them for statistical analyses in the present work according to the geographical position of the investigated sites published in the reviewed articles. We also analysed the dissimilarities in epiphytic lichen richness among European biogeographical and ecological regions. Additionally, we analysed the impact of different silvicultural management practices (within assessed forests) on epiphytic lichen richness across the different biogeographical and ecological regions of Europe. The main results indicate that epiphytic lichen richness is significantly different across the biogeographical and ecological regions of Europe. Epiphytic lichen richness is significantly greater in Western European broadleaf forests in the Carpathian and Caledonian mountain areas and significantly lower in the Central European mixed forests and East European forest steppe. Management practices applied within studied forests had a negative impact on epiphytic lichen richness, while epiphytic lichen richness was higher within unmanaged forests. The main conclusion is that forests within highland areas of Europe that are not subjected to anthropogenic activities or management practices harbour greater epiphytic lichen richness and therefore should be conserved and protected due to their biological and ecological importance.