Abstract
The effects of zeolite and biochar addition on ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and archaea (AOA) communities during agricultural waste composting were determined in this study. Four treatments were conducted as follows: Treatment A as the control with no additive, Treatment B with 5% of zeolite, Treatment C with 5% of biochar, and Treatment D with 5% of zeolite and 5% biochar, respectively. The AOB and AOA amoA gene abundance as well as the ammonia monooxygenase (AMO) activity were estimated by quantitative PCR and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, respectively. The relationship between gene abundance and AMO enzyme activity was determined by regression analysis. Results indicated that the AOB was more abundant than that of AOA throughout the composting process. Addition of biochar and its integrated application with zeolite promoted the AOB community abundance and AMO enzyme activity. Significant positive relationships were obtained between AMO enzyme activity and AOB community abundance (r2 = 0.792; P < 0.01) and AOA community abundance (r2 = 0.772; P < 0.01), indicating that both bacteria and archaea played significant roles in microbial ammonia oxidation during composting. Using biochar and zeolite might promote the nitrification activity by altering the sample properties during agricultural waste composting.
Highlights
Composting has been widely recognized as an effective way to convert agricultural waste into valuable organic products [1,2]
Gaseous emissions inevitably reduced the nutrient content, which is a major challenge for the composting process [3,4]
CH4 and N2O, which are reported by the international panel on climate change (IPCC), are 30–210 times more likely to contribute to global warming than carbon dioxide (CO2) and are responsible for climate change or ozone depletion
Summary
Composting has been widely recognized as an effective way to convert agricultural waste into valuable organic products [1,2]. Microbial inoculation and chemical/mineral material additives improved the composting efficiency, reduced nitrogen losses and mitigated greenhouse gas emissions [7,8,9]. Zeolite, bentonite and other additives can increase the porosity of compost materials, improve the air diffusion efficiency and reduce the emission risk of greenhouse gases. Such additives have the characteristics of porosity or a high specific surface area, which is beneficial to absorb nitrite nitrogen (NO2−-N) and N2O in the compost matrix, promote complete nitrification or denitrification and reduce the release of N2O [10,11,12,13]. The effects of zeolite and biochar addition to nitrogen conservation during agricultural waste composting have attracted worldwide attention
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