Concerns for short-term effects of global changes on biodiversity have been reported from several regions, including Mediterranean areas highly affected by desertification processes. Beside climate changes., human activities are the primary cause of land degradation in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid areas. Along a typical Mediterranean land-use gradient in W Sardinia (Italy), many favourable environments for lichen growth were intensively investigated, and epiphytic and epilithic species richness and abundance were assessed, to evaluate the response of lichen diversity to land use intensity and other predictors related to desertification processes. By using non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMS) analysis, epilithic lichen diversity changed along several gradients: a land use gradient, ranging from forested to non-forested sites, climatic moisture, and management quality. Epiphytic diversity was associated to a gradient of decreasing sensitivity to desertification (ESA index). Based on multi-response permutation analysis the overall land use categorization showed significant compositional dissimilarities both in epilithic and epiphytic lichen communities between thermophilous Quercus forests, pasture and arable lands, shrublands and garigues, agroforestry lands, Quercus sober plantations and thermophilous Pious forests.