The severe degradation of grassland ecosystems in South Africa has necessitated the development of rapid assessment and monitoring methods, a task to which Buschke and Seaman (2011) have responded promptly. Their paper tests the use of functional feeding groups (FFG) as taxonomic surrogates for family-level dynamics in terrestrial arthropods, and concludes that "for rapid monitoring and snap-shot assessments, FFG could be used as a reliable taxonomic surrogate" (ibid.: 217). However, I contest this conclusion, and present three counter-arguments based on practical, technical and theoretical viewpoints. I also argue that the concept of biodiversity surrogacy, although dismissed by the authors, is possibly the most plausible solution.

To cite this paper: Mlambo, M.C. 2011. A comment: Functional feeding groups as a taxonomic surrogate for a grassland arthropod assemblage. African Invertebrates 52 (2): 587-589.