The terrestrial carbon and nitrogen cycling processes are critical in maintaining soil fertility and ecosystem stability. These processes are driven by microorganisms, and affected by many environmental factors, which have evidently spatial variations. Environmental variables like climate, plant and soil properties will change along elevation. Changbai Mountain is one of few natural ecosystems under good conservation on the earth. This project intends to collect soil samples along the elevation gradient in Changbai Mountain, using pyrosequencing, GeoChip and DNA stable isotope labeling techniques, to investigate soil microbial communities along elevation and their relationships with carbon and nitrogen transformations. In addition, through combining climate and environmental variables and using bioinformatics analysis, this project aims to elucidate microbial vertical distribution and its driving mechanisms. These results will contribute to better understanding of coupling mechanisms between microbial vertical distribution and carbon and nitrogen cycling in soils, which would provide scientific basis for ecosystem management in Changbai Mountain.