Plant leaves respiration plays an important role in forest carbon cycle as a vital respiration flux of forest ecosystem. The study on the mechanism mechanism of leaf respiration and its controlling factors will help establish the respiration flux model between air and vegetation and predict the impact of global climate change on productivity and carbon balance of forest ecosystem. Leaf respiration rate of forest ecosystem is usually measured using Li-6400 photosynthetic measurement system and LAI-2000 plant canopy analyzer. Leaf respiration is a complex biochemistry process, which is controlled by atmospheric temperature, CO_2 concentration, soil water content, leaf life-span, leaf age, leaf specific area, leaf nitrogen content and other factors. The daily variations of leaf respiration presents in unimodal curve, which is in line with the temperature change; the respiration rate is higher in the early and late growing season than in the middle; the position of leaf at canopy can influence the respiration rate, which is higher at the upper canopy than at the lower canopy. In the future, the study on leaf respiration is supposed to focus on following 4 critical points: (1) temperature acclimation of leave respiration, which need to be considered when modeling; (2) respiratory metabolism at the turn of day or night; (3) the shift of scaling from leaf to canopy; (4) strengthening the study on controlling factors to leaf respiration.