Abstract
There is interest in utilizing wood ash as an amendment in forestry operations as a mechanism to return nutrients to soils that are removed during harvesting, with the added benefit of diverting this bioenergy waste material from landfill sites. Existing studies have not arrived at a consensus on what the effects of wood ash amendments are on soil biota. We collected forest soil samples from studies in managed forests across Canada that were amended with wood ash to evaluate the effects on arthropod, bacterial and fungal communities using metabarcoding of F230, 16S, 18S and ITS2 sequences as well as enzyme analyses to assess its effects on soil biotic function. Ash amendment did not result in consistent effects across sites, and those effects that were detected were small. Overall, this study suggests that ash amendment applied to managed forest systems in amounts (up to 20 Mg ha−1) applied across the 8 study sties had little to no detectable effects on soil biotic community structure or function. When effects were detected, they were small, and site-specific. These non-results support the application of wood ash to harvested forest sites to replace macronutrients (e.g., calcium) removed by logging operations, thereby diverting it from landfill sites, and potentially increasing stand productivity.
Highlights
There is interest in utilizing wood ash as an amendment in forestry operations as a mechanism to return nutrients to soils that are removed during harvesting, with the added benefit of diverting this bioenergy waste material from landfill sites
There are additional possible downstream benefits that should be considered, such as the alleviation of calcium limitation in watersheds that have been affected by acid r ain[9] and, some studies have recorded increases to amphibian and earthworm assemblages[10,11]
Bacterial and fungal communities are known to be responsive to differences in moisture, pH and calcium levels[16]
Summary
There is interest in utilizing wood ash as an amendment in forestry operations as a mechanism to return nutrients to soils that are removed during harvesting, with the added benefit of diverting this bioenergy waste material from landfill sites. These nonresults support the application of wood ash to harvested forest sites to replace macronutrients (e.g., calcium) removed by logging operations, thereby diverting it from landfill sites, and potentially increasing stand productivity. There are additional possible downstream benefits that should be considered, such as the alleviation of calcium limitation in watersheds that have been affected by acid r ain[9] and, some studies have recorded increases to amphibian and earthworm assemblages[10,11]. These alterations have the potential to influence other soil taxa. Though the potential benefits of ash use are great, a barrier to ash use is that it is generally still classified as an industrial waste product, and attaining regulatory approval remains a confusing and difficult p rocess[1,23]
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