Abstract:Our objective was to understand the relationship between leaf stoichiometric characteristics, nutrients reabsorption efficiency and nitrogen (N) supply of Larix principis-rupprechtii. We selected 24-year-old Larix principis-rupprechtii plantation as study object, and set up a 3-level (0, 8 and 15 g/(m2·a)) field experiment of N addition for 6 years to explore the change of mature leaves, leaves litter and soil nutrients contents. The results showed that the content of C in mature leaves was significantly different among years. The N addition significantly increased the C and N contents of mature leaves in 2016-2018, and decreased the P content in 2018, resulting in an increase of 20.20% in N/P ratio under light nitrogen addition and 34.43% under heavy nitrogen addition in 2018, and a peak of 20.50 in N/P ratio under heavy N addition in 2018, which indicated that N addition could drive the P nutrient limitation of the stand growth to a certain extent. The contents and stoichiometry of C, N and P in leaves litter were significantly different between years and different N addition. The N addition significantly increased the C content, C/P and N/P of leaves litter in 2016-2018, and significantly decreased the P content in 2016-2018. NRE and NRE/PRE decreased significantly under light N addition, while PRE increased significantly under N addition in 2016-2018. Correlation analysis showed that there were significant negative correlations between NRE and leaf N contents, and between PRE and leaf P contents, with the correlation coefficients of -0.860 and -0.772 respectively. The N addition significantly increased the content of soil available N, decreased soil pH (except 2016) and available P content. The results indicated that the growth of coniferous forests in North China was limited by P in different degrees due to N addition. It was speculated that the P nutrient limitation of the forests driven by N addition might be related to the initial soil nutrient status in this region, which provided reference for forest nutrient management under global climate change.