Straw amendment to paddy soil stimulates denitrification but biochar amendment promotes anaerobic ammonia oxidation

Abstract

Organic matter amendment is usually used to improve soil physicochemical properties and to sequester carbon for counteracting climate change. There is no doubt that such amendment will change microbial activity and soil nitrogen transformation processes. However, the effects of straw and biochar amendment on anammox and denitrification activity and on community structure in paddy soil are unclear. We conducted a 30-day pot experiment using rice straw and rice straw biochar to deepen our understanding about the activity, microbial abundance, and community structure associated with soil nitrogen cycling during rice growth. Regarding activity, anammox contributed 3.1–8.1% of N2 production and denitrification contributed 91.9–96.9% of N2 production; straw amendment resulted in the highest denitrification rate (38.9 nmol N g−1 h−1), while biochar amendment resulted in the highest anammox rate (1.60 nmol N g−1 h−1). Both straw and biochar amendments significantly increased the hzsB and nosZ gene abundance (p < 0.05). Straw amendment showed the highest nosZ gene abundance, while biochar amendment showed the highest hzsB gene abundance. Phylogenetic analysis of the anammox bacteria 16S rRNA genes indicated that Candidatus Brocadia and Kuenenia were the dominant genera detected in all treatments. Straw and biochar amendments have different influences on anaerobic ammonia oxidation and denitrification within paddy soil. Our results suggested that the changes in denitrification and anammox rates in the biochar and straw treatments were mainly linked to functional gene abundance rather than microbial community structure and that denitrification played the more major role in N2 production in paddy soil.