We measured soil respiration(SR) and soil characteristics under canopy and open land of Tamarix ramosissima Ledeb.in field station(FS) and Haloxylon ammodendron Bge.in north desert(ND),southern of Gurbantunggtun desert,with an infrared gas analyzer system(model CIRAS-1,PP Systems,Hitchin,UK) equipped with a flow-through closed chamber.The results showed that heterogeneity of characteristics was different significantly between canopy and open land,soil respiration under canopy was higher than open land.In FS scrubland,the characteristics such as: SOM,EC,TN,CaCO_3 content were higher than ND as well as soil respiration.Relativity of soil respiration and CaCO_3 was marked;the changes of CaCO_3 content controlled the changes of soil respiration in temporal and spatial in scrubland.The objective of this study was to investigate spatial change of soil characteristics and soil respiration in scrubland,the changes were critical to understand the ecosystem process of desert,interaction between soil microbial and soil characteristics,study of global climate change.