Climate change has only a minor impact on nutrient resorption parameters in a high-latitude peatland.

Nutrient resorption from senescing plant tissues is an important determinant of the fitness of plant populations in nutrient-poor ecosystems, because it makes plants less dependent on current nutrient uptake. Moreover, it can have significant "afterlife" effects through its impact on litter chemistry and litter decomposability. Little is known about the effects of climate change on nutrient resorption. We studied the effects of climate change treatments (including winter snow addition, and spring and/or summer warming) on nutrient resorption of four dominant species in a nutrient-poor subarctic peatland. These species were Betula nana (woody deciduous), Vaccinium uliginosum (woody deciduous), Calamagrostis lapponica (graminoid) and Rubus chamaemorus (forb). After five years of treatments both mature and senesced leaf N concentrations showed a small but significant overall reduction in response to the climate treatments. However, the effects were species-specific. For example, in the controls the N concentration in senesced leaves of Calamagrostis (3.0±0.2 mg N g