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The paper reviewed the role of plants in the processes of methane production, oxidation and emission in soils. It was the abilities of different plants to excrete the quantity and quality of root exudates that resulted in discrepancies of methane production among plants and in plant growing seasons. The oxygen magnitude of the downward transport through the plant aerenechyma, which, in turn, also acted as a conduit for methane from the soil to the atmosphere, affected endogenous methane oxidation capacity with plants and with plant growing seasons. Plant through changing amount and density of plant aerenchyma altered its ability to transport methane from soil to atmosphere. In addition to soil properties, flux and pattern of methane emission from soils largely depended on plant abilities to excrete exudates and oxygen, and transport methane in different plant growing seasons.

Permanently flooded rice fields are the rice fields which emit the largest amount of CH4 in China. A 6-years (1995-2000) measurement carried out in a permanently flooded rice field in Chongqing, China showed that draining floodwater in winter and planting upland crops, either winter wheat or rape, instead of fallow under flooded conditions not only stopped CH4 emission during the winter season, but also mitigated CH4 emission during following rice growing period. CH4 emission could also be mitigated by ridge-cultivation. By using the results obtained from 1998-2000, statistical analysis indicated a significant relationship between the mean CH4 emission over the rice growing period and averaged soil moisture in winter season, which explained 56% of the variation of the CH4 emissions among the years and treatments. The averaged soil moisture (0-20 cm) in winter season and soil temperature (5 cm) over the rice growing period explained 78% of the variation. The significance of soil moisture in winter season in CH4 emission during the following rice growing period was further demonstrated by a lysimeter experiment. The relationships implied that the precipitation during non-rice growing period, which dominates soil moisture at a large spatial scale, and the soil temperature during the rice growing period would be the main factors controlling the annual variation of CH4 emissions from rice fields.

The influence of temperature and its mechanism on methane production and oxidation in soils were reviewed in this paper. Temperature can alter the soil ability to produce methane through changing types of dominant methanogens in archaeal community. Dominant methanogen is Methanosarcinaceae at higher temperature which can utilize both H2/CO2 and acetate as the precursor to produce methane, while Methanosaetaceae at lower temperature which only use acetate as the precursor and produce far less methane than do Methanosarcinaceae. Increasing soil temperature apparently raises soil ability to produce methane, which is called temperature effectiveness and expressed as Q10 with a range from 1.5 to 28 and an average of 4.1. There is an obviously positive correlation between temperature effectiveness (Q10) on methane production and substrate content. As compared to methane production, effect of temperature on methane oxidation is lower, which may be related to the strong affinity of methanotrophs for methane.

FACE (Free-air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment) was used to study the effects of elevated CO2 on rice (Oryza sativa) growth, tissue C/N, N and P concentration and uptake at different development stages under two N and two P levels. Results showed that elevated CO2 increased dry matter accumulation in rice stem, ear and root. Leaf dry matter was increased at tillering stage and no significant effect was found at jointing, heading and ripening stages. N concentration of stem and leaf was decreased. Ear N concentration at heading stage was increased but was decreased at ripening stage. No significant effect was found on root N concentration at tillering stage but root N concentration at jointing, heading and ripening was decreased. Leaf P concentration at jointing, heading and ripening was increased but no significant effect was found on P concentration in stem, ear and root. C content in various tissues changed unremarkably and the ratio of C over N (C/N) was increased. Elevated CO2 significantly increased P uptake in aboveground tissues; and increased N uptake, but the difference was not statistically significant. N and P fertilization had no significant effect on various tissue dry biomass. Tissue N content at higher N fertilization was higher than at lower N fertilization but no such effect of P fertilization on tissue P content was found. At higher N fertilization, elevated CO2 increased the ratio of below-ground biomass over above-ground biomass at ripening stage. Possible reasons are discussed for the differences of tissue N and P content and the ratio of below-ground biomass over above-ground biomass between elevated and ambient atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

We firstly introduced the method for determining the net ecosystem exchange fluxes of CO2 (NEE) between croplands and atmosphere, based on field measurements using static opaquechamber/gas chromatography methods was introduced, and the application of this method in the FACE (free-air CO2 enrichment) study to examine the effects of elevated CO2 on the NEE over a typical paddy ecosystem was carried out, because of lacking in observation data for some necessary parameters, e.g., dark maintenance respiration coefficient, only the minimum value of NEE (NEEmin) was calculated based on opaque-chamber measurements. The NEEmin data indicate that CO2 elevated by 200 +/- 40 mumol.mol-1 significantly increased the ecosystem uptake of atmospheric CO2 by a factor ca. 3. To accurately determine the NEE based on opaquechamber measurements, dark maintenance respiration coefficient, above-ground biomass and root: shoot, i.e. R:S, ratio of root to shoot should be observed over the whole growing season.