Data for: Leaf N-S of wetland plants in western China

Salinization alters the elemental balance of wetlands and induces variations in plant survival strategies. Sulfur (S) plays vital roles in serving regulatory and catalytic functions in stress resistance of plants. Yet, how plant S and its relationships with nitrogen (N) vary across natural environmental gradients are not well documented. We collected 1366 plant samples and 230 water and sediment samples from 230 wetlands in Tibetan Plateau and adjacent arid regions of western China, to analyze the effects of environmental variables on plant S accumulation and N-S correlations. We found that plant S correlated with N in unimodal patterns. Salinity, rather than temperature or nutrient supply, promoted disproportionate accumulation of S but limited N uptake, inducing decoupling of N-S correlation in plants. Towards high salinity, the faster increasing rates of total S than that of glutathione, the most abundant organic-S compound in plant resistance, provided potential evidences explaining...