LAUSR

Pesticide risk assessment for "listed" (threatened and endangered) species is hampered by a lack of quantitative demographic information. Demographic information for non-listed species could inform risk assessments and recovery plans for listed species, however it is unclear how representative demography of the former is of the latter. We performed a comparison of plant demographic traits and elasticity metrics to explore how similar these are between listed and non-listed species. We used transition matrices from the COMPADRE database to calculate population growth rate, net reproductive rate, generation time, damping ratio, summed elasticities for survival (stasis), growth, and fertility (reproduction) and evenness of elasticity. We compared these across species varying in conservation status and population trends. Phylogenetic generalized least squares models were used to evaluate differences between listed and non-listed plants. Overall, demographic traits were largely overlapping for listed and non-listed species. Population trend had a significant impact on most demographic traits and elasticity patterns. The influence of generation time on elasticity metrics was consistent across all data groupings. In contrast, the influence of population growth rate on elasticity metrics was highly variable, and correlated in opposite directions in growing and declining populations. Our results suggest that population models developed for non-listed plant species may be useful for assessing the risks of pesticides to listed species. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.