Climate warming is mainly caused by increasing atmospheric CO₂ and CH₄. Soil respiration plays an important role in the carbon balance of terrestrial ecosystems. Currently, the increase in atmospheric CO₂ is due to human activities, natural distubances and processes. Soil respiration is one of the natural processes that release CO₂ to atmoshphere from soil. Quantitative analysis of soil respiration is critial to assess forest ecosystem carbon budget under climate change scenairos. The temperate forest is one of the important components of terrestrial ecosystems. The forest in the Changbai Mountains is the typical temperate forest in China. Therefore, researching of soil respiration in the forests of Changbai Mountains is of great concern in estimating soil carbon budeget in China. In the growing season of 2013 (August), we emploed the temporal-spatial substitution method to determine sample plots on the north slope of the Changbai Mountains, which cover five vegetation succession stages: grassland, shrub forest (young forest), secondary birch(Betula platyphylla) forest, broad-leaved-mixed forest, and broad-leaved Korean pine(Pinus koraiensis) forest. The objectives of this study were to reveal the similarities and differences in soil CO₂ emission processes at different succession stages of temperate forests, and to investigate the relationship between soil CO₂ emission flux and soil temperature, moisture, physicochemical properties and other environmental factors. The field synchronous observations were conducted to determine the daily variation of soil CO₂ emission flux based on the temporal-spatial substitution method. The results showed that: 1) Soil CO₂ emission flux of the temperate forest was unity at all the five vegetation succession stages. The unity of CO₂ emission flux ensured that we could observe brief periods (such as during daylight) to estimate the CO₂ emissions; 2) The CO₂ emission flux during daytime produced an obvious single-peak that appeared at approximately 13:00-15:00. The peak in grassland and shrub forest appeared at approximately 13:00, which was earlier than that of the secondary birch(Betula platyphylla) forest, broad-leaved mixedforest, and broad-leaved Korean pine forest (at approximately 14:00-15:00). Soil respiration in Korean pine broad-leaved forest had an obvious time-lag effect, and its peak appeared at approximately 15:00, which was later than that of the others sample plots; 3) Average soil CO₂ emission fluxes from low to high ranked as: grassland (2.760 μmol m^-2 s^-1), shrub forest (2.854 μmol m^-2 s^-1), secondary birch(Betula platyphylla) forest (3.048 μmol m^-2 s^-1), broad-leaved mixed forest (3.696 μmol m^-2 s^-1), broad-leaved Korean pine (Pinus koraiensis) mixed forest (4.61 μmol m^-2 s^-1). Within temperate forest succession stages, soil CO₂ emission flux increased gradually and ranked as: grassland < shrub forest < secondary birch (Betula platyphylla) forest < broad-leaved mixed forest < broad-leaved and Korean pine (Pinus koraiensis) mixed forest; 4) The soil temperature in the 0-5 cm depth soil had the highest correlation coefficient with soil CO₂ flux compared with other environmental variables. Therefore, Soil temperature monitoring will be useful for estimating soil CO₂ emissions.