1 Stage projection (Lefkovitch) matrices for 21 species of woody plants and 45 herbaceous perennials were extracted from the plant demographic literature or compiled from published data. 2 Each matrix was divided into six regions representing: 1, recruitment of seeds to the seed pool; 2, recruitment of seedlings or juveniles from current seed production; 3, clonal growth; 4, retrogression, due to plants decreasing in size or reverting in stage; 5, stasis, (survival from one year to the next in the same stage class); 6, progression to later stage classes. 3 Matrix analysis was used to calculate the finite rate of increase X for each population and to calculate the elasticities of each transition coefficient in the matrices. Elasticities were summed within each of the six regions of the matrix to give measures (E1 -E69 respectively) of the importance of each component of the life cycle to X and fitness. 4 Herbs as a group differed significantly from woody plants in most of these components. Seedling recruitment was more important in herbs than woody plants. Retrogression occurred only in herbs, particularly those with a tuber. Stasis occurred in nearly all species, but was most important in woody plants. Progression was more important than fecundity in almost all species. 5 Trade-offs among life cycle components were determined from correlation matrices of r (= ln X) and elasticities E1 -E6 for the whole sample and for herbs and woody plants separately. As a whole, r was positively correlated with elasticities for fecundity (E1 + E2) and growth (E3 + E6) and negatively correlated with survival (E4 + E15). In clonal herbs, fecundity and clonal growth were negatively correlated. 6 The division of elasticities into three major components (growth, G = E3 + E6; fecundity, F = E1 + E2; and survival, L = E4 + E5) allowed us to construct triangular plots in G-L-F space. This was done separately for iteroparous forest herbs, iteroparous herbs from open habitats, semelparous herbs and woody plants. Each of these four groups occupied a distinct position in G-L-F space. Within woody plants, shrubs of fire-prone habitats occupied the end of the distribution with the lowest survival elasticity. 7 It is argued that the demographic approach to the classification of distinct ecological groups offers new insights into the relationship between life history and habitat.

Significance Plants have evolved diverse life history strategies to succeed in Earth’s varied environments. Some species grow quickly, produce copious seeds, and die within a few weeks. Other species grow slowly and rarely produce seeds but live thousands of years. We show that simple morphological measurements can predict where a species falls within the global range of life history strategies: species with large seeds, long-lived leaves, or dense wood have population growth rates influenced primarily by survival, whereas individual growth and fecundity have a stronger influence on the dynamics of species with small seeds, short-lived leaves, or soft wood. This finding increases the ability of scientists to represent complex population processes with a few easily measured character traits.

Abstract. Elasticities of matrix elements from population projection matrices are commonly used to analyze the relative contributions of different life history transitions (birth, survival, growth) to the finite rate of increase (). Hitherto, comparative demography based on matrix models has relied upon decomposing elasticity matrices into blocks, each containing matrix elements deemed to represent recruitment, stasis, or progression to larger size classes. Elasticities across an entire matrix always sum to unity, and different populations and species can be compared on the basis of the relative proportions of these three variables. This method has been widely used, but it contains a weakness in that the value of matrix elements is a function of more than one vital rate. For example, transitions representing progression to larger size classes involve a survival rate as well as a growth rate. Ideally, then, demographic comparisons between populations should be made using elasticities of vital rates themselves, rather than elasticities of matrix elements that are compounds of those rates. Here, we employ the complete set of general equations for the elasticity of vital rates in an entirely new analysis of matrices for 102 species of perennial plants. The results show a surprising similarity to an earlier analysis based upon matrix element elasticity and provide important confirmation of general patterns of correlation between plant life history and demography. In addition, we show that individual vital rate elasticities cannot, on their own, predict variation in life history. Therefore, all three demographic processes (survival, growth, and reproduction) are necessary to account for life history variation. The new analysis provides a firmer foundation for comparative demography.

Population projection (Lefkovitch) matrices are now a standard method for quantifying and analyzing the demography and population dynamics of plants. Elasticity analysis of such a matrix indicates the relative effect on the population growth rate (λ) of small changes to matrix elements representing different transitions in the life cycle. In a comparison of elasticity matrices for 84 species of plants we show that the relative importance of recruitment from seed (measured by composite elasticity F), stasis (measured by composite elasticity L), and growth (measured by composite elasticity G) varies systematically between the groups semelparous herbs, iteroparous herbs of open habitats, forest herbs, shrubs, and trees. We discuss how this result might be used to construct rules of thumb useful in plant conservation. By looking in detail at how λ covaries with the composite elasticities F, L, and G among 16 populations of the semelparous herb Cirsium vulgare and among 15 populations of the rare iteroparous herb Pedicularis furbishiae, we show that a naive interpretation of elasticities can give a misleading prescription for management. Instead, we show that elasticity analysis supports management prescriptions based upon the successional status of a species or upon its response to disturbance.

Summary1. Schedules of survival, growth and reproduction are key life-history traits. Data on how these traits vary among species and populations are fundamental to our understanding of the ecological conditions that have shaped plant evolution. Because these demographic schedules determine population *Correspondence author. E-mails: salguero@demogr.mpg.de; compadre-contact@demogr.mpg.de † Joint senior author. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. 2015, 103, 202-218 doi: 10.1111/1365-2745.12334 growth or decline, such data help us understand how different biomes shape plant ecology, how plant populations and communities respond to global change and how to develop successful management tools for endangered or invasive species. Journal of Ecology2. Matrix population models summarize the life cycle components of survival, growth and reproduction, while explicitly acknowledging heterogeneity among classes of individuals in the population. Matrix models have comparable structures, and their emergent measures of population dynamics, such as population growth rate or mean life expectancy, have direct biological interpretations, facilitating comparisons among populations and species. 3. Thousands of plant matrix population models have been parameterized from empirical data, but they are largely dispersed through peer-reviewed and grey literature, and thus remain inaccessible for synthetic analysis. Here, we introduce the COMPADRE Plant Matrix Database version 3.0, an opensource online repository containing 468 studies from 598 species world-wide (672 species hits, when accounting for species studied in more than one source), with a total of 5621 matrices. COMPADRE also contains relevant ancillary information (e.g. ecoregion, growth form, taxonomy, phylogeny) that facilitates interpretation of the numerous demographic metrics that can be derived from the matrices. 4. Synthesis. Large collections of data allow broad questions to be addressed at the global scale, for example, in genetics (GENBANK), functional plant ecology (TRY, BIEN, D3) and grassland community ecology (NUTNET). Here, we present COMPADRE, a similarly data-rich and ecologically relevant resource for plant demography. Open access to this information, its frequent updates and its integration with other online resources will allow researchers to address timely and important ecological and evolutionary questions.

Summary1. Population dynamics often defy predictions based on empirical models, and explanations for noisy dynamics have ranged from deterministic chaos to environmental stochasticity. Transient (short-term) dynamics following disturbance or perturbation have recently gained empirical attention from researchers as further possible effectors of complicated dynamics. 2. Previously published methods of transient analysis have tended to require knowledge of initial population structure. However, this has been overcome by the recent development of the parametric Kreiss bound (which describes how large a population must become before reaching its maximum possible transient amplification following a disturbance) and the extension of this and other transient indices to simultaneously describe both amplified and attenuated transient dynamics. 3. We apply the Kreiss bound and other transient indices to a data base of matrix models from 108 plant species, in an attempt to detect ecological and mathematical patterns in the transient dynamical properties of plant populations. 4. We describe how life history influences the transient dynamics of plant populations: species at opposite ends of the scale of ecological succession have the highest potential for transient amplification and attenuation, whereas species with intermediate life history complexity have the lowest potential. 5. We find ecological relationships between transients and asymptotic dynamics: faster-growing populations tend to have greater potential magnitudes of transient amplification and attenuation, which could suggest that short-and long-term dynamics are similarly influenced by demographic parameters or vital rates. 6. We describe a strong dependence of transient amplification and attenuation on matrix dimension: perhaps signifying a potentially worrying artefact of basic model parameterization. 7. Synthesis. Transient indices describe how big or how small plant populations can get, en route to long-term stable rates of increase or decline. The patterns we found in the potential for transient dynamics, across many species of plants, suggest a combination of ecological and modelling strategy influences. This better understanding of transients should guide the formulation of management and conservation strategies for all plant populations that suffer disturbances away from stable equilibria.

Recent studies have used transition matrix elasticity analysis to investigate the relative role of survival (L), growth (G) and fecundity (F) in determining the estimated rate of population increase for perennial plants. The relative importance of these three variables has then been used as a framework for comparing patterns of plant life history in a triangular parameter space. Here we analyse the ways in which the number of life-cycle stages chosen to describe a species (transition matrix dimensionality) might influence the interpretation of such comparisons. Because transition matrix elements describing survival ("stasis") and growth are not independent, the number of stages used to describe a species influences their relative contribution to the population growth rate. Reduction in the number of stages increases the apparent importance of stasis relative to growth, since each becomes broader and fewer individuals make the transition to the next stage per unit time period. Analysis of a test matrix for a hypothetical tree species divided into 4-32 life-cycle stages confirms this. If the number of stages were defined in relation to species longevity so that mean residence time in each stage were approximately constant, then the elasticity of G would reflect the importance of relative growth rate to λ. An alternative, and simpler, approach to ensure comparability of results between species may be to use the same number of stages regardless of species longevity. Published studies for both herbaceous and woody species have tended to use relatively few stages to describe life cycles (herbs: n=45, [Formula: see text]; woody plants: n=21, [Formula: see text]) and so approximate this approach. By using the same number of stages regardless of longevities, the position of species along the G-L side of the triangular parameter space largely reflects differences in longevity. The extent of variation in elasticity for L, G and F within and between species may also be related to factors such as successional status and habitat. For example, the shade-tolerant woody species, Araucaria cunninghamii, shows greater importance for stasis (L), while the gap-phase congener species, Araucaria hunsteinii, shows higher values for G (although values are likely to vary with the stage of stand development).

Summary 1.Although it is well established that different plant species vary considerably in the quality of pollinator rewards they offer, it is unclear how plant reproductive systems, in particular an obligate dependence on insects for pollination, might influence the evolution of pollinator rewards. Moreover, unlike the interaction between nectar reward and pollinator visitation, we have a limited understanding of the way in which pollen quality influences pollinator foraging behaviour. 2. We quantified the pollen protein and amino acid content for 23 NW European plant species. Pollen quality was compared with breeding system (facultative-vs. obligate insect-pollinated). A subset of 18 plants was sampled from a single habitat. For these we compared the proportion of pollen collection visits made by bumblebees with the quality of pollen offered. 3. We found a significant association between pollen quality and reproductive system; pollen of obligate insect-pollinated species contained higher protein content. We also found a significant relationship with pollinator use; plants most frequently visited by pollen-collecting bumblebees produced the highest-quality pollen. 4. We discuss how the close relationship between pollen quality and bumblebee attraction may have important benefits for plant reproductive success. However, we also show how the disruption of this mutualism can have detrimental consequences for plant and pollinator alike.