A critical issue in conservation biology is the establishment of a strong relationship between species richness and a surrogate index. Such a relationship could provide the basis for the establishment of cost effective and easy to monitor methods for measuring biodiversity, providing an alternative for the prioritization of sites for conservation. Both family and genus richness are tested in their ability to predict the number of spider (Araneae) species independently of sampling detection, spatial autocorrelation, area, geographical location and type of habitat. Data from two protected areas of TCA was used as a test case. Genus richness is considered a good surrogate of species richness, despite some caution being needed regarding the comparison of sites with considerably different sampling effort. Only genus alone is found to be reliable either for ranking sites according to taxa richness or for determining near-minimum sets of sites for conservation. The study recommends surrogacy at this higher taxonomic level as a promising approach for the prediction of spider species richness or evaluation and ranking of areas according to their conservation importance.
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