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Response of soil bacterial community to biochar application in a boreal pine forest

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Abstract

Boreal forests commonly suffer from nitrogen deficiency due to low rate of nitrogen mineralization. Biochar may promote soil organic matter decomposition and accelerate nitrogen mineralization. In this study, Illumina NovaSeq sequencing combined with functional annotation of prokaryotic taxa (FAPROTAX) analysis was used to investigate the effect of biochar pyrolysis temperatures, the amount of applied biochar, and the period since the biochar application (2- and 3-year) on soil bacterial communities. The results show that biochar pyrolysis temperatures (500 °C and 650 °C) and the amount of applied biochar (0.5 kg m−2 and 1.0 kg m−2) did not change soil properties. Nevertheless, the interaction of biochar pyrolysis temperature and the amount had significant effects on bacterial species richness and evenness (P < 0.05). The application of biochar produced at 500 °C had a lower abundance of Actinobacteria and Verrucomicrobia, while that produced at 650 °C had a higher abundance of Conexibacter and Phenylobacterium. When biochar produced at 650 °C was applied, applying 0.5 kg m−2 had a higher abundance of Cyanobacteria, Conexibacter, and Phenylobacterium than that of 1.0 kg m−2 (P < 0.05). Functionally, the abundance of the aromatic compound degradation group increased with the extension of application time and increase of pyrolysis temperature. The time since application played an important role in the formation of soil bacterial communities and their functional structure. Long-term studies are necessary to understand the consequence of biochar on bacterial communities in boreal forests.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available in the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) database (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra) with the following Accession Number: SRP341147.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the staff of the Hyytiälä Forestry Field Station for supporting us in the field work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Collaborative Innovation Center of Sustainable Forestry in Southern China, College of Forestry, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, 210037, China

    Yan Ge, Xiao-li Li & Hui Sun

  2. Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki, Latokartanonkaari 7, P. O. Box 27, 00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Marjo Palviainen, Jussi Heinonsalo & Hui Sun

  3. Department of Environmental and Biological Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, Yliopistonranta 1 E, P. O. Box 1627, 70211, Kuopio, Finland

    Xuan Zhou, Frank Berninger, Jukka Pumpanen & Kajar Köster

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  1. Yan Ge
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  2. Xiao-li Li
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  3. Marjo Palviainen
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  4. Xuan Zhou
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  5. Jussi Heinonsalo
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Contributions

JP, JH, FB and HS: conceptualization. YG, XlL and HS: methodology and writing—original draft preparation. HS, XZ, YG and XlL: software, formal analysis, and data curation. JP, KK, FB, JH, MP and HS: writing—review and editing. JP, KK, MP and HS: funding acquisition. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Hui Sun.

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Project funding: This study was funded by The Foundation for Research of Natural Resources in Finland (2016085). The study was also supported by the Academy of Finland (286685, 294600, 307222, 277623) and the FCoE of atmospheric sciences (Center of Excellence (1118615)).

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Corresponding editor: Yu Lei.

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Ge, Y., Li, Xl., Palviainen, M. et al. Response of soil bacterial community to biochar application in a boreal pine forest. J. For. Res. 34, 749–759 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11676-022-01509-x

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