A demographic interpretation of Grime's triangle

1. The CSR theory of life-history strategies of Grime, and demographically based theories of life history represent strongly contrasting approaches that have yet to be reconciled. 2. It is argued that there are a priori grounds for analogy between Grime's three primary strategies of the established phase in plants and the demographic processes of growth (almost-equal-to C), survival (almost-equal-to S), and fecundity (almost-equal-to R). 3. The contribution of growth, fecundity and survival to the finite rate of population increase-lambda was calculated for populations of 18 plant species that have also been classified according to Grime's CSR scheme. The match between the demographic classification of species based on these data and their CSR status was determined using a randomization test, and no significant match between the two was found. The reasons for this result are discussed, and it is concluded that it would be premature to abandon attempts to reconcile these two important approaches to plant life history.