Abstract: In this study, we investigated vegetation carbon storage, litter carbon storage and soil carbon storage of Larix gmelinii-Carex schmidtii forested wetlands ecosystem under the unburned site, lightly burned site and heavily burned site in Daxing'an Mountain, in order to reveal the short-term effects of fire disturbance on carbon storage of forested wetlands ecosystem. Results showed that the vegetation carbon storage of heavily burned site (0.26 kg·m^-2) significantly (P<0.05) decreased by 96.3% than that of unburned site (7.12 kg·m^-2), but it on the lightly burned site (6.35 kg·m^-2) only reduced 10.8% (P>0.05). The litter carbon storage of the lightly burned site (0.23 kg·m^-2) and heavily burned site (0.15 kg·m^-2) decreased respectively by 32.4% and 55.9% than that of the unburned site (0.34 kg·m^-2), but only the latter existed significant difference with unburned site (P<0.05). The soil carbon storage of the lightly burned site (15.46 kg·m^-2) and heavily burned site (16.33 kg·m^-2) was both significantly lower than that of the unburned site (23.07 kg·m^-2) (decreased by 33.0% and 29.2%, P<0.05). The ecosystem carbon storage of the lightly burned site (22.04 kg·m^-2) and heavily burned site (16.74 kg·m^-2) decreased by 27.8% and 45.2% (8.49 or 13.79 kg·m^-2) than that of the unburned site (30.53 kg·m^-2), but only the latter existed significant difference with the unburned site (P<0.05), and there were decreased trends with the fire disturbance intensity increased. Therefore, the heavily fire disturbance should be prevented in order to maintain or increase the carbon sink of the forested wetlands ecosystem.

Key words: forested wetland ecosystem, carbon storage, fire disturbance, Daxing'an Mountain