Due to the scarcity of rigorous species monitoring across several taxonomic groups, sustainable forest management indicators related to the biodiversity criterion in Europe are mainly indirect indicators based on tree-related data. Direct monitoring of species, however, often permit more thorough monitoring of the status of biodiversity and its dynamics, with a more rapid assessment of the impact of forest management and forest policies. Using French metropolitan forests as a case study, the PASSIFOR2 project combined the use of direct forest biodiversity indicators as well as associated dendrometric and management-related variables in designing monitoring templates. The project was developed based on (i) the specification of refined monitoring objectives, (ii) a broad consultation of existing networks for collecting biodiversity data in forests and (iii) some methodological research to improve the quality of sampling and data analysis. We present our lessons learned as well as the four main advances that have been made: (i) a method and a protocol for building multi-network biodiversity monitoring templates; (ii) an objective choice of taxa to be favored in monitoring in French forests, based on a multicriteria analysis, and associated protocols to monitor them (direct biodiversity indicators); (iii) proposals for dendrometric and management variables to be documented and be related to the direct biodiversity indicators; and (iv) statistical results to guide the choices in terms of sampling schemes and data analysis.< Leer menos