Abstract: Forest regeneration is the premise of maintaining forest ecosystem stability, and its early phase (seed germination and seedling growth) is very sensitive to climate change and markedly affected by forest litter. To deep understand the related affecting mechanisms can help us to further know the dynamics of forest regeneration and the direction of community succession. This paper summarized the research progress on forest litter, and discussed the physical mechanisms the forest litter affects seed germination and seedling growth (mechanical hinders of forest litter to seed and seedling emergence, changes in temperature, moisture, and light conditions of microenvironment, and so on), biochemical mechanisms (allelochemicals and nutrients release), indirect effects induced by the alternation of soil physical and chemical properties, and direct or indirect effects induced by the synergistic action of climate change and forest litter. The future directions in this research field were also discussed.

Key words: Paddy soil, Fixed ammonium, Seasonal variation, Bioavailability, Hunan Province