Change in water extractable organic carbon and microbial PLFAs of biochar during incubation with an acidic paddy soil
Ming Li A B , Ming Liu A , Stephen Joseph C D E , Chun-Yu Jiang A , Meng Wu A and Zhong-Pei Li A B F
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China.
B University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
C Discipline of Chemistry, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia.
D University of New South Wales, School of Material Science and Engineering, NSW 2052, Australia.
E Institute of Resource, Ecosystem and Environment of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210095, China.
F Corresponding author. Email: zhpli@issas.ac.cn
Soil Research 53(7) 763-771 https://doi.org/10.1071/SR14259
Submitted: 5 August 2014 Accepted: 21 April 2015 Published: 27 October 2015
Abstract
Biochar has been considered to affect the transformation of soil organic carbon, soil microbial activity and diversity when applied to soil. However, the changes in chemical and biological properties of biochar itself in soil have not been fully determined. In this study, various biochar samples were obtained from three crop straws (rice, peanut and corn) and two wood chips (bamboo and pine), and incubated with an acidic paddy soil. We examined the changes of biochar water extractable organic carbon (WEOC) content and its ultraviolet (UV) absorbance at 280 nm during incubation period, and also investigated the microbial phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs) profile of biochar after 75 days of incubation. The WEOC content of biochars decreased at the end of incubation, except for the biochar pyrolysed from bamboo chips at 400°C. An average reduction rate of 61.2% in WEOC concentration for straw biochars occurred within the first 15 days, while no significant change was observed for all biochars between day 15 and 45, and a slight increase in WEOC occurred for all biochars in the last 30 days. There was a positive relationship between biochar WEOC content and its UV absorbance properties. The microbial PLFAs concentrations of biochars varied from 15.56 to 60.35 nmol g–1, and there was a greater abundance in content and species for corn straw biochars than for the other types of biochars. General bacteria were the dominant microbial group that colonised biochar sample, while gram-positive bacterial and fungi were less in abundance. The chemical properties of fresh biochar were well correlated with total PLFAs concentrations, and significantly related to the composition of microbial community. We concluded that the WEOC component of most biochars change within such short-term application to soil, and the WEOC in combined with the pH and nutrient status of biochar, can alter the type and abundance of microorganisms that colonised biochar.
Additional keywords: acidic paddy soil, charsphere, microbial community composition, pyrolisis, soil properties.
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