Water table drawdown accelerates peatland degradation and carbon loss from peatland, but phenolic compounds—the concentration and composition of which are determined by vegetation community composition—can slow down carbon loss. However, the response of phenolic compounds to water table drawdown is not clear. We aimed to clarify how water table drawdown influence soil phenolic compounds composition by detecting them at peatlands with different water table. Our results showed that water table drawdown changed plant biodiversity and altered the structure of phenolic compounds. Plant biodiversity, richness, evenness, areal coverage, and aboveground biomass all significantly increased with the water table drawdown. Phenolic compounds transferred from monophenol to polyphenol with the water table drawdown. The concentration of water-soluble phenols also increased with the water table drawdown due to the hydrophilic nature of polyphenol compounds. In addition, the concentration of water-soluble phenols was positively correlated with total vegetation coverage and richness. We concluded that water table drawdown accelerates change in the vegetation community, alters the structure of phenolic compounds and increased the concentration of water-soluble phenols, which could play an important role in carbon output from peatlands.

地下水位下降加速了泥炭地的退化和泥炭地的碳损失，但是酚类化合物（其浓度和组成由植被群落组成决定）可以减缓碳损失。但是，酚类化合物对地下水位下降的响应尚不清楚。我们旨在通过在具有不同地下水位的泥炭地进行检测来阐明地下水位下降对土壤酚类化合物组成的影响。我们的结果表明，地下水位下降改变了植物的生物多样性，并改变了酚类化合物的结构。随着地下水位的下降，植物的生物多样性，丰富性，均匀性，面积覆盖率和地上生物量均显着增加。地下水位下降时，酚类化合物从单酚转移到多酚。由于多酚化合物的亲水性，水溶性酚的浓度也随着地下水位的下降而增加。此外，水溶性酚的浓度与植被总覆盖度和丰富度呈正相关。我们得出的结论是，地下水位下降加速了植被群落的变化，改变了酚类化合物的结构并增加了水溶性酚的浓度，这可能在泥炭地的碳排放中起重要作用。