Nutrient addition affects scaling relationship of leaf nitrogen to phosphorus in Arabidopsis thaliana

1. Ambient nutrient changes influence the coupling of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) in terrestrial ecosystems, but whether it could alter the scaling relationship of plant leaf N to P concentrations remains unclear. 2. Here we conducted experimental manipulations using Arabidopsis thaliana, with five levels of N and P additions and nine repeated experiments, and then evaluated the changes in the scaling relationship of leaf N to P concentrations under nutrient additions. 3. Overall, leaf N concentration scaled as 0.552 power of leaf P concentration for all data pooled. However, when considering the effect of the type of nutrient addition, the scaling relationship for pooled data of the five levels of N addition was insignificant at two growth stages (young-leaf and mature-leaf stages), whereas the scaling relationship for pooled data of the five levels of P addition was significant with exponents of 0.290 and 0.268 at the two growth stages, respectively. Furthermore, the scaling expon...