BEIJING, May 3 (Xinhua) -- A new study has revealed the characteristics of plant nutrient resorption in the permafrost ecosystem of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, shedding light on nutrient conservation strategies in cold regions.

The study, conducted by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Botany, has been published in the Nature Communications journal.

Nutrient resorption is a crucial strategy for nutrient conservation, especially in permafrost ecosystems, where plant growth is constrained by nutrient availability.

Current projections, which are based mainly on measurements from tropical, subtropical and temperate regions, indicate that the resorption efficiency of leaf nitrogen in cold regions is higher than that of phosphorus.

However, these projections have not been fully validated due to a lack of observations in permafrost ecosystems.

The research team launched a large-scale sampling campaign along a permafrost transect that crosses the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and found that, in contrast with the prevailing view, the resorption efficiency of leaf phosphorus is higher than that of nitrogen in permafrost ecosystems.

The findings further indicate that in permafrost ecosystems, the leaf phosphorus resorption efficiency surpasses that of herbaceous plants found around the world, though no significant disparity was observed in leaf nitrogen resorption efficiency.

The study also revealed an intriguing trade-off between leaf nitrogen resorption efficiency and soil nitrogen mineralization rates. No such pattern was detected for phosphorus. ■