Abstract:Soil respiration, known as the second largest componentof carbon dioxide flux between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere, is sensitive to climate, vegetation type as well as forest age. In order to simulate the long-term forest carbon dynamics and its impact on climate system, we need to understand the successional status of carbon dynamics more than learn the responses of forest ecosystems to the changing climate. However, in spite of its significant role in determining the distribution of carbon pools and fluxes in different forest ecosystems, the effect of age on forest carbon fluxes great is uncertain. Soil temperature and soil water content are recognized as the main factors controlling the temporal variation of soil respiration. In this paper, soil carbon dynamic was measured in different age stands of Secondary Betula platyphylla (20a, 36a, 82a) in Xiaoxing'an Mountain, China. Soil respiration measurements were conducted using a LI-6400-09 soil CO2 flux system from May to October in 2008. Besides, We measured soil organic carbon content (g/kg) and bulk density (g/cm3) at four layers across the chronosequence in August 2009. Our specific objectives were to: (1) compare the cumulative soil respiration during the growing season for the different age stands of Secondary Betula platyphylla, (2) quantify soil organic carbon (SOC) contents and SOC density and (3) establish quantitative relationships between soil carbon fluxes and SOC density for the three forest ecosystems. Our results showed that the seasonality of soil respiration was driven mainly by soil temperature with the peak appeared in August, and was roughly consistent with that of soil temperature. Soil temperature at 10 cm could explain 86% -92% of the variation of soil respiration for the 3 different age stands of Secondary Betula platyphylla. And the soil volumetric water content was not significantly correlated with soil respiration rate and it was not a key factor to soil respiration. We fitted site-based models and used continuous measurements of soil temperature to estimate cumulative soil respiration for the growing season of 2008 (days 132-295). Cumulative soil respiration in the growing season was estimated to be 740、768 and 809 C m- 2 a-1 in the 20a, 36a and 82a Betula platyphylla, respectively. Both, cumulative soil respiration and Q10 increased during stand establishment. Q10 was estimated to be 2.64, 2.91and 3.35 in the 20a, 36a and 82a Betula platyphylla, respectively. Both, total soil organic carbon (SOC) contents and SOC density at 0-50 cm increased during stand establishment, but decreased with soil depth. SOC was estimated to be 43.75, 47.72 and 55.96 g/kg for the three forest ecosystems. Meanwhile, the figures were 14.7, 18.1 and 18.7 kg/m2 for SOC density in the 20a, 36a and 82a Betula platyphylla, respectively. Soil surface carbon flux was positively correlated to SOC content (P<0.01), and the significance level of the correlation depended on soil depth, and the soil carbon flux was more positively correlated to SOC concentration at the depth of 0-10 cm(R2=0.908) .