【Objective】Soil particulate organic carbon (POC) is a key player in the transformation and sequestration of soil carbon pools. However, POC content is significantly regulated by changes in soil environment. Therefore, this study was aimed to clarify the change of POC and its influencing factors with vegetation degradation of alpine wetlands, in an attempt to provide certain basic data for further understanding the responses of soil carbon pool dynamics to climate change and human activities in alpine wetland. 【Methods】In this study, the swampy meadow of Gahai wetland in the northeastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) was taken as the study area. In the typical vegetation growth area around Gahai Lake, the spatial instead of temporal method was used to characterize the degree of degradation. Sample plots were set up by selecting lots with gentle terrain and consistent slope orientation. Different vegetation degradation levels were classified according to the indicators of plant species composition, aboveground biomass, community height and cover. Soil samples were collected from four vegetation degradation levels, including non-degraded (ND), slightly degraded (SD), moderately degraded (MD), and heavily degraded (HD) in swampy meadow at Gahai wetland. The contents of soil POC were investigated in in the growing seasons of 2016-2017 by field sampling and laboratory analysis. Three-factor analysis of variance was used to analyze the effects of vegetation degradation, soil layer, sampling time and their interactions on soil moisture, soil organic carbon (SOC) and POC contents. Redundancy analysis was performed to determine the dominant factors affecting the change of SOC components in each vegetation degradation levels. 【Results】The results showed that vegetation degradation significantly decreased the amount of POC at soil surface layers (0-10 and 10-20 cm), but there was no significant effect on the deep layers (20-40, 40-60, 60-80 and 80-100 cm). As the growing season progresses, the contents of POC at 0-10 and 10-20 cm layers decreased first and then increased in four vegetation degradation levels. However, the contents of POC at the other deep layers did not change significantly. In terms of inter-annual variation, soil POC levels and fluctuations were higher in 2016 than in 2017. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that the sampling time, the vegetation degradation and soil layer had significant effects on the POC content, respectively. Meanwhile, the interaction of sampling time, vegetation degradation and soil layer had a significant effect on soil POC content. To further identify the intrinsic factors affecting changes in POC content. Redundancy analysis was utilized to reveal the differences between the studied factors. The results showed that total nitrogen and below-ground biomass were the main factors driving changes in soil organic carbon fractions. 【Conclusion】In summary, the process of vegetation degradation in alpine wetlands may impair the accumulation of surface soil carbon pools in the wetlands of the QTP. The original POC accumulation is gradually lost with the increasing degree of vegetation degradation. This phenomenon suggests that vegetation degradation may have transformed the QTP wetlands into a new potential carbon source.