Biochar mitigates the effect of nitrogen deposition on soil bacterial community composition and enzyme activities in a Torreya grandis orchard

Abstract

Increased reactive N deposition has widespread effects on terrestrial ecosystems, such as biodiversity loss, soil acidification, as well as stimulated plant growth. Empirical studies show that biochar often affects soil quality, crop productivity, soil microbial community composition and enzyme activities. However, the effect of biochar addition on forest soil bacterial community along with enzyme activities under nitrogen (N) deposition and its related mechanisms have not been well studied yet. Therefore, a 2-year field study was conducted to investigate the effects of biochar amendment (0, 20, 40 kg biochar ha−1 yr−1) on soil nutrients, enzyme activities, and bacterial community in a Torreya grandis orchard under different levels of N deposition (0, 30, 60 kg N ha−1 yr−1). N deposition significantly increased soil nutrients availability, such as N, phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), while biochar amendment led to significant increase in soil pH, organic carbon (SOC), total N (TN), total P (TP), available P (AP) and available K (AK). Both N deposition and biochar amendment significantly decreased the soil microbial biomass carbon (MBC), altered soil microbial community and enzyme activities significantly. Biochar addition increased the relative abundance of phylum Proteobacteria under different levels of N deposition, but had variable effect on Acidobacteria groups. Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) indicated that biochar amendment can mitigate the effect of N deposition on soil bacterial community composition and enzyme activities. Soil pH and SOC played an important role in shaping soil bacterial community composition, while available AP and AK contents significantly related to the variation of soil enzyme activities. Structure equation modeling (SEM) revealed that N deposition had negative effect on soil enzyme activities while biochar amendment can mitigate this negative effect through increasing AP content. Our result suggests that biochar amendment can mitigate the alteration of soil bacterial community and enzyme activities induced by N deposition, and this mitigation effect was linked to the alteration of soil physicochemical properties, especially the increased AP content. Thus, biochar amendment could be a promising way to develop sustainable forest management under increasing N deposition.