Demography and life history of two rattan species, Eremospatha macrocarpa and Laccosperma secundiflorum, in Côte d'Ivoire

<jats:title>Abstract:</jats:title><jats:p>Two rattans species were studied in Côte d'Ivoire using a stage-classified matrix model to compare their demography and life histories. Respectively 854 and 1009 genets of<jats:italic>Eremospatha macrocarpa</jats:italic>(pleonanthic) and<jats:italic>Laccosperma secundiflorum</jats:italic>(hapaxanthic) were censused every 6 mo over 18 mo. The population growth rates of<jats:italic>E. macrocarpa</jats:italic>(λ = 0.979) and<jats:italic>L. secundiflorum</jats:italic>(λ = 0.959) were not significantly different from 1. This indicates that the populations were close to equilibrium. However, the difference between the stable stage distributions and the observed distributions indicated temporal variation in vital rates. Elasticity analysis showed that growth and fecundity had lower contributions to λ than the survival rates for the two species. A Life Table Response Experiment revealed that the survival of the first juvenile stage (all stems &lt; 6 m in length), fecundity, growth of the second juvenile stage (at least one stem &gt; 6 m in length) and adult (reproductive) survival highly contribute to the differences between the demography of the two species. Reproduction is postponed longer for<jats:italic>L. secundiflorum</jats:italic>than for<jats:italic>E. macrocarpa</jats:italic>and the mean remaining life span for adult genets is shorter for<jats:italic>L. secundiflorum</jats:italic>than for<jats:italic>E. macrocarpa</jats:italic>. Finally, our results suggest the existence of two trade-offs within reproduction which suggest that, although the two species have different demographic features, the λ of their populations are not significantly different from 1.</jats:p>