Soil enzymes play an essential role in nutrient mineralization and their activity is an exceptional indicator for predicting the capacity of soil to supply nutrients to plants. In soil organic matter decomposition,soil extracellular enzymes catalyze the rate-limiting step and their catalysis,production,and degradation rates are regulated by moisture. Due to global warming,precipitation in the mid-subtropical region is decreasing,which profoundly affects the forest ecosystems; however, research in this field is relatively scarce. To investigate how soil extracellular enzyme activity (EEA) responds to altered precipitation regime,we conducted this study to measure the effects of experimental reduction in rainfall by 50% on the soil physicochemical properties, extracellular enzyme activity, and nutrient availability in surface soil samples from a Cunninghamia lanceolata forest ecosystem,collected in dry and wet seasons. These extracellular enzymes were carbonacquisition enzymes,including beta-glucosidase (betaG),cellulose hydrolysis (CBH),phenol oxidase (PHO),and peroxidase (PEO). The results showed that the overall enzyme activities of the wet season samples were higher than those of the dry season samples. Irrespective of the season,except for PHO in the dry season samples,the activities of almost all soil enzymes,especially betaG,significantly increased after treatment. Redundancy analysis indicated that the EEA patterns were mainly driven by soil moisture,NO_3~- -N,and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in the dry season,and by microbial biomass carbon,DOC,and NH_4~+ -N in the wet season. Our results suggested that the EEA in the carbon cycle in the mid-subtropical region would increase with reduction in precipitation. This may be because,despite the precipitation exclusion experiment, moisture did not become a limiting factor owing to the high rainfall in the mid-subtropical region. Alternatively,it could be a response or adaptation strategy of EEA to the adverse environmental change of precipitation reduction. Our study could have implications for carbon and nutrient cycling under changes in precipitation in the near future.