Abstract: Soil organic carbon mineralization is the major pathway of soil carbonrelease into atmosphere. To investigate the relationships between soil organic carbon mineralization and environmental factors is of significance in studying global carbon cycle and its potential feedback to climate change. With incubation test, this paper studied the effects of temperature, soil moisture, and carbon and nitrogen addition on the mineralization rate of soil carbon (C_min) in a 10-year old Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica plantation at Keerqin Sandy Lands. The results indicated that the C_min increased xponentially with the temperature from 10 ℃ to 30 ℃, and positively linearly increased with soil moisture content from 10% water hold capacity (WHC) to 100% WHC. The dependence of soil carbon mineralization to temperature (Q₁₀) was different under different soil moisture conditions. When the soil moisture content was 10% WHC, the Q₁₀ value was the smallest. The sensitivity of soil carbon mineralization to soil moisture content was significantly lower at low temperature (10 ℃) than at suitable or high temperature (20 ℃-30 ℃). Carbon addition increased the C_min, while nitrogen addition had less effect. However, with the increase of soil organic carbon content, the C_min was affected by soil nitrogen content.

Key words: Artificial grassland, Grass, Architecture, Small-scale pattern