Effects of nitrogen addition on carbonate-derived CO₂ emission after biochar addition

Abstract

● We studied the effect of nitrogen and biochar on CO₂ emission from SOC and SIC.

● Nitrogen increased SIC-derived CO₂ by 41% but decreased SOC-derived CO₂ by 20%.

● Biochar reduced total soil-derived CO₂ by neutralizing nitrogen-induced acidity.

● We proposed a method for 3- or 4-source partitioning CO₂ emission from calcareous soils.

Biochar addition generally increases the alkalinity regeneration to resist soil acidification driven by nitrogen (N) fertilization. Calcareous soils contain soil organic carbon (SOC) and inorganic C (SIC). Owing to technical limitations in three-source partitioning CO₂, how biochar addition affects SOC- and SIC-derived CO₂ emission has not been clarified yet. Therefore, we conducted a 70-day incubation experiment of ammonium-N and maize-straw-derived biochar additions to investigate the N plus biochar impacts on SOC- and SIC-derived CO₂ emission. Over the 70-day incubation, we found that the N-only addition increased the SIC-derived CO₂ emission by approximately 41% compared with the control, but decreased the SOC-derived CO₂ emission by approximately 20%. This suggests that the distinct responses of SIC- and SOC-derived CO₂ emission to N-only addition come from N-induced acidification and preferential substrate (N) utilization of soil microorganisms, respectively. Compared with N-only addition, N plus biochar addition decreased the SIC-derived CO₂ emission by 17%−20% during the first 20 days of incubation, but increased it by 54% during the next 50 days. This result suggested that biochar addition reduced the SIC-derived CO₂ emission likely due to the alkalization capacity of biochar exceeding the acidification capacity of ammonium-N in the short term, but it may increase the SIC-derived CO₂ emission induced by the weak acidity produced from biochar mineralization in the long term. This study is helpful to improve the quantification of CO₂ emission from calcareous soils.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

biochar / soil organic carbon / soil inorganic carbon / three-source partitioning / soil CO ₂ emission / ¹³C isotope

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