<p><em>Aims</em>&#160; With the wide application of <sup>7</sup>Be (Beryllium-7) in soil erosion investigations, absorption and interception of <sup>7</sup>Be by vegetation play an important role in documenting soil <sup>7</sup>Be redistribution, with a large impact on the precision of <sup>7</sup>Be measurements. However, the dynamic changes in plants and the relationship with soil <sup>7</sup>Be concentration remain unclear, and the significance of dead plants in <sup>7</sup>Be interception is under-researched.</p><p><em>Methods</em>&#160; The samples of 6 plant species, multi-plants (including living, dead and both mixed) and soil reference on the Loess Plateau were collected to analyze the variations of <sup>7</sup>Be content during the growth period from 2010 to 2012.</p><p><em>Results</em><em> </em>&#160;The accumulation of <sup>7</sup>Be concentration is significantly higher in leaves than stems. The <sup>7</sup>Be mass and areal activity concentrations in multi-plants with seasonal trends ranged from 173.9 to 964.5 Bq kg<sup>&#8211;1</sup> and 21.5 to 440.1 Bq m<sup>&#8211;2</sup>. Precipitation accounted for the largest contribution to the accumulation of <sup>7</sup>Be in plants, followed by plant growth, species and parts. Plants accounted for <sup>7</sup>Be interception on slope up to 66% (living plants accounted for 7%~31% and dead accounted for 6%~44%). The interception of living plants is low at first, then increases with biomass accumulated.</p><p><em>Conclusions</em> &#160;Our results highlight that <sup>7</sup>Be concentration in plants has great implications for <sup>7</sup>Be in soil, and is subject to precipitation, growth status and plant characteristics. The reference information obtained in this work will contribute to improving the accuracy of <sup>7</sup>Be tracer technology, and broadening the application scope and scale of <sup>7</sup>Be tracer technology.</p><p><strong>Keywords </strong>&#160;Beryllium-7 &#183; Loess Plateau &#183; Precipitation &#183; Plant &#183; Activity concentration</p>
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