Relative 'Importance' of Life-History Stages to Population Growth: Prospectiveand Retrospective Analyses

摘要

We describe five analyses, two prospective and three retrospective, that addressthe question of how the vital rates affect population growth rate. Then we apply them to data on the Neotropical understory herb Calathea ovandensis. Comparison of the results sheds light on various aspects of the 'importance' of the vital rates in this particularly well studied case.