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

Highlights

• 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.

Abstract

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.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

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

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Acknowledgements

Financial support was provided by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) in the form of a Discovery grant to SXC (No. 249664-2013). This study was also supported by Beijing Natural Science Foundation (No. 6202021). Xiaoqiang Gong would like acknowledge the scholarship from the China Scholarship Council (CSC No. 201706510040).

Disclosure Statement

The authors reported no potential conflict of interest. We also confirm that the studies did not involve endangered or protected species.

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