Abstract:

Shangguan ZP, Lei TW, Shao MA, Xue QW (2005). Effects of Phosphorus Nutrient on the Hydraulic Conductivity of Sorghum (Sorghum vulgare Pers.) Seedling Roots Under Water Deficiency. J Integr Plant Biol 47, 421-427. The first and corresponding author, Zhou-Ping Shangguan, of the above article has requested that its publication be retracted from the Journal of Integrative Plant Biology (JIPB), with the following statement: With the fact that the data published in the above-mentioned article contained plagiarized materials from the article of Shen Y, Wang B, Qu D, Chen R. Effects of phosphorus on root hydraulic conductance of corn under water stress. Journal of Northwest Sci-Tech University of Agriculture and Forestry (JNSTUAF, Natural Science Edition). 2002, 30: 11-15, I have to retract the paper from JIPB. In addition, I admit that the manuscript was prepared and published without the consensus of the other three authors listed, therefore, I myself am solely responsible for the plagiarizm and falsification. I deeply apologize for the damages to JIPB and the authors of the JNSTUAF paper, and for misleading the readers by the publication and citation of the data. Zhou-Ping Shangguan Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, the Chinese Academy of Sciences Yangling, Shannxi, 712100, China Tel: 86-29-87019107 Fax: 86-29-87012210 E-mail: shangguan@ms.iswc.ac.cn July 16, 2006 Editorial It was brought to our attention that the above-mentioned paper co-authored by ZP Shangguan was involved in serious scientific misconduct. We communicated several times with the first and corresponding author (ZP Shangguan), to allow him to clarify the case by himself. We have carefully investigated the case, with help from the author's home institution, the Institute of Soil and Water Conservation (ISWC), the Chinese Academy of Sciences. On December 5, 2006, we received a formal statement from the ISWC, that described the results of an official investigation into the case. Based on these documents, we would like to make the following statements: 1) It is apparent that the above-mentioned paper contains falsified and plagiarized data from the following paper: Shen Y, Wang B, Qu D, Chen R (2002). Effects of phosphorus on root hydraulic conductance of corn under water stress. Journal of Northwest Sci-Tech University of Agriculture and Forestry (Natural Science Edition), 30: 11-15. 2) The first author is fully responsible for the misconduct, although he has stated that an un-authored visiting student was involved in putting the data together. 3) We acknowledge that a formal request was made by ZP Shangguan on April 10, 2006, to the editorial office to retract the paper; however, the Journal has not been able to publish the retraction letter earlier because the investigation was not formally completed. 4) ZP Shangguan has been discharged from administrative duties of the ISWC. This serves as a reminder to all involved with the Journal that scientific integrity requires original research from each published author. Journal of Integrative Plant Biology December 11, 2006