Abstract: To reveal the effects of continuous year soilsurface mulching on the nutrient use characteristics of Phyllostachys praecox leaves, this paper studied the leaf nutrient use efficiency and resorption efficiency in a P. praecox forest during refoliation across three years soil-surface mulching. With the mulching, both the soil nitrogen (N) availability and the P. praecox leaf N use efficiency and N resorption efficiency had a significant increase, showing a higher N-nutrientconserving ability of the forest. The soil phosphorus (P) availability increased significantly but the leaf P use efficiency was in adverse, reflecting the leaf adaptation strategy to high soil P content. There was a significant negative correlation between leaf N and P use efficiency. Opposite to soil N and P, soil potassium (K) had a significantly decreased availability. The leaf K resorption efficiency increased up to 95.8%, suggesting that the forest could maintain normal nutrient circulation through enhancing its leaf K resorption efficiency. The leaf N_m/P_m across the three years soil-surface mulching had a significant decrease, being less than 14, indicating the high capability of P. praecox leaves to absorb soil P within the three years soil-surface mulching. The matured leavesN_m/P_m had no significant correlations with leaf N and P resorption efficiency, and thus, leaf N_m/P_m could not best reflect the nutrient resorption pattern of the P. praecox forest.

Key words: site type, site index, quantification theory I, nonlinear mixed model, plantation.