We reviewed the measurement methods, measurement scale, modeling method, and application of soil respiration in terrestrial ecosystems, in order to provide relevent information about this important carbon cycle process. Soil respiration is a process that release CO_2 from the soil to atmosphere. Soil respiration has important impacts on the carbon balance in ecosystem. Methods for measuring soil respiration can be classified into the three types which are alkali absorption method, closed chamber-gas chromatograph method and infra-red gas analyzer method. Scales for measuring soil respiration can be classified into four types which are daily change measurements, seasonal change measurements, interannual change measurements and spatial change measurements. Given enough in situ measurement data available, the temporal and spatial variability in soil respiration can be simulated by semi-empirical models, which use precipitation, air temperature, soil property, vegetation characteristics, nitrogen deposition, latitude and longitude as input variables. The semi-empirical models which are the main methods for estimating global soil respiration have given the reasonable scales 88.0~98.0 Pg·a-(1 by C). On the other hand, although most terrestrial biogeochemical models include the module simulating the dynamics of soil organic carbon, they do not include the module for simulating soil respiration. The study of soil respiration has important application values. Firstly, soil respiration is the indicator of soil fertility. Secondly, other terrestrial carbon fluxes can be estimated, as soil respiration is correlated to other carbon fluxes. Thirdly, the response of soil respiration to the global change is an important aspect of the ecological response to global change. Future investigations should focus on the simultaneous measurements of soil respiration and climate, soil, and vegetation factors, which may improve the accuracy of modeling the temporal and spatial variability in soil respiration. The long-term in situ measurements of soil respiration in typical ecosystems are also needed, which may be useful to analyze the response of soil carbon pool to environmental factors.