Cattle manure biochar and earthworm interactively affected CO<sub>2</sub> and N<sub>2</sub>O emissions in agricultural and forest soils: Observation of a distinct difference

doi:10.1007/s11783-021-1473-8

Front. Environ. Sci. Eng.

2022, Vol. 16

Issue (3) : 39 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-021-1473-8

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Cattle manure biochar and earthworm interactively affected CO₂ and N₂O emissions in agricultural and forest soils: Observation of a distinct difference

Xiaoqiang Gong^1,^2,³, Jinbiao Li^1,⁴, Scott X. Chang¹(

), Qian Wu⁵, Zhengfeng An¹, Chengpeng Huang⁶, Xiangyang Sun²(

), Suyan Li², Hui Wang³(

)

¹. Department of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E3, Canada
². College of Forestry, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
³. State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
⁴. Co-Innovation Center for Sustainable Forestry in Southern China, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China
⁵. Key Laboratory of Grassland Resources of the Ministry of Education and Key Laboratory of Forage Cultivation, Processing and High Efficient Utilization of the Ministry of Agriculture, College of Grassland, Resources and Environment, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010011, China
⁶. State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Silviculture, Zhejiang A&F University, Lin’an 311300, China

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Abstract

• Earthworms increase CO₂ and N₂O emissions in agricultural and forest soil.

• 10% biochar suppresses CO₂ and N₂O emissions in forest soil.

• Biochar interacted with earthworm to significant affect CO₂ and N₂O emissions.

The application of manure-derived biochar offers an alternative to avoid the direct application of manure to soil causing greenhouse gas emission. Soil fauna, especially earthworms, can markedly stimulate carbon dioxide (CO₂) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions from soil. This study therefore investigated the effect of cattle manure biochar (added at rates of 0, 2%, or 10%, coded as BC0, BC2 and BC10, respectively) application, with or without earthworm Aporrectodea turgida, on emissions of CO₂ and N₂O and changes of physic-chemical properties of agricultural and forest soils in a laboratory incubation experiment. The BC10 treatment significantly enhanced cumulative CO₂ emissions by 27.9% relative to the untreated control in the agricultural soil. On the contrary, the BC2 and BC10 treatments significantly reduced cumulative CO₂ emissions by 16.3%–61.1% and N₂O emissions by 92.9%–95.1% compared to the untreated control in the forest soil. The addition of earthworm alone significantly enhanced the cumulative CO₂ and N₂O fluxes in agricultural and forest soils. Cumulative CO₂ and N₂O fluxes were significantly increased when BC2 and BC10 were applied with earthworm in the agricultural soil, but were significantly reduced when BC10 was applied with earthworm in the forest soil. Our study demonstrated that biochar application interacted with earthworm to affect CO₂ and N₂O emissions, which were also dependent on the soil type involved. Our study suggests that manure biochar application rate and use of earthworm need to be carefully studied for specific soil types to maximize the climate change mitigation potential of such management practices.

Keywords Carbon sequestration Forest soil Cattle manure biochar Greenhouse gas emissions Soil fauna

Corresponding Author(s): Scott X. Chang,Xiangyang Sun,Hui Wang

Issue Date: 19 July 2021

Cite this article:

Xiaoqiang Gong,Jinbiao Li,Scott X. Chang, et al. Cattle manure biochar and earthworm interactively affected CO₂ and N₂O emissions in agricultural and forest soils: Observation of a distinct difference[J]. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng., 2022, 16(3): 39.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fese/EN/10.1007/s11783-021-1473-8
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fese/EN/Y2022/V16/I3/39

Fig.1 Changes of CO₂ emission rate and N₂O emission rate during a 48-day incubation: (A) the dynamics of CO₂ emissions from the agricultural soil, (B) the dynamics of CO₂ emissions from the forest soil, (C) the dynamics of N₂O emissions from the agricultural soil and (D) the dynamics of N₂O emissions from the forest soil. Values are the mean (n = 4 replicates)±standard errors (bars). CK, soil only (control); BC2, 2% biochar; BC10, 10% biochar; EW, one earthworm; EW+ BC2, one earthworm+ 2% biochar; EW+ BC10, one earthworm+ 10% biochar.

Tab.1 The results (F value and P value) of two-way ANOVAs on the effects of biochar and earthworm treatments on cumulative CO₂ and N₂O emissions from agricultural and forest soils after 48 days of incubation (n = 4)

Fig.2 Changes of cumulative CO₂ emissions during a 48-day incubation: (A) the cumulative CO₂ release from the agricultural soil and (B) the cumulative CO₂ emission from the forest soil. The inserts are the cumulative CO₂ emissions at the end of the 48-day incubation. Values are the mean (n = 4 replicates)±standard errors (bars). Different letters indicate significant differences between treatments at P<0.05 according to the Tukey’s HSD test. CK, soil only (control); BC2, 2% biochar; BC10, 10% biochar; EW, one earthworm; EW+ BC2, one earthworm+ 2% biochar; EW+ BC10, one earthworm+ 10% biochar.

Fig.3 Boxplots of the effect of biochar and earthworm treatments on soil CO₂ and N₂O emissions in the agricultural and forest soils during the incubation period. (A) CO₂ emitted from the agricultural soil, (B) CO₂ emitted from the forest soil, (C) N₂O emitted from the agricultural soil, (D) N₂O emitted from the forest soil. Box and whisker plots show first to third quartile range (boxes), outliers (circles), median (line) and mean (Discontinuous line) marker values (n = 4). Different lowercase letters on bars indicate significantly different means at P<0.05 based on the Tukey’s test.

Tab.2 Effects of biochar amendment, earthworm addition and their interaction on the chemical properties of an agricultural at the end of the incubation experiment (n = 4)

Tab.3 Effects of biochar amendment, earthworm addition and their interaction on the chemical properties of a forest soil at the end of the incubation experiment (n = 4)

Fig.4 Redundancy analyses (RDA) of the relationships between soil properties and soil CO₂ and N₂O emissions in (A) agricultural soil and (B) forest soil.

Fig.5 Potential mechanisms of biochar and earthworm amendment on soil CO₂ from (A) agricultural soil and (B) forest soil, and N₂O emissions from (C) agricultural soil and (D) forest soil. The red line and blue line represent the positive and negative regulations, respectively.

Fig.6 Changes of cumulative N₂O emission during a 48-day incubation: (A) the cumulative N₂O emission from the agricultural soil and (B) the cumulative N₂O emission from the forest soil. The inserts are the cumulative N₂O emission at the end of 48-day incubation. Values are the mean (n = 4 replicates)±standard errors (bars). Different letters indicate significant differences between treatments at P<0.05 according to the Tukey’s HSD test. CK, soil only (control); BC2, soil+ 2% biochar; BC10, soil+ 10% biochar; EW, soil+ one earthworm; EW+ BC2, soil+ one earthworm+ 2% biochar; EW+ BC10, soil+ one earthworm+ 10% biochar.

Tab.4 The results (F value and P value) of two-way ANOVAs on the effects of biochar amendment, earthworm addition and their interaction on the chemical properties of an agricultural at the end of the incubation experiment (n = 4)

Tab.5 The results (F value and P value) of two-way ANOVAs on the effects of biochar amendment, earthworm addition and their interaction on the chemical properties of a forest soil at the end of the incubation experiment (n = 4)

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