Abstract: Litter decomposition has far-reaching impact on the forest ecosystem soil carbon pool. This paper summarized the domestic and foreign related researches in recent years, briefly described the litter decomposition process and study methods, and analyzed the effects of litter decomposition on soil carbon pool by soil respiration, soil organic carbon, soil microbial biomass carbon, soil carbon mineralization and physicochemical properties. In response to the questions existing in the current research on litter decomposition, we pointed out that it was necessary to use new experiment methods, such as 13C isotope tracer method; monitoring the dynamic changes of lignin during the decomposition process; using multi factor cross analysis to approach the actual situation; and studying the decomposition of litter in a large space-time scale.