Competitive interaction with keystone taxa induced negative priming under biochar amendments

Background: Biochar amendments have been widely proposed as a conventional and efficient strategy to promote soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration via negative priming. Unfortunately, the extent and biological mechanisms responsible for biochar-induced negative priming are still not fully understood. Despite traditional explanations focused on the environmental filtering mechanisms of biochar amendments on microbial biomass and community composition underlying the priming effect on SOC dynamics, whether and how a biochar-induced competitive interaction with keystone taxa determines SOC mineralization in natural ecosystems has been minimally explored.

Results: Here, we paid particular attention to the relationships between the diversity and network structure of soil bacterial and fungal communities and SOC mineralization. A 3-year field experiment was conducted comprising five treatments: no fertilization, conventional fertilization, and conventional fertilization with three rates of biochar amendments. Biochar amendments considerably increased soil moisture capacity and pH and subsequently shaped the composition and co-occurrence networks of soil bacterial and fungal communities. Importantly, network analysis revealed that the biochar amendments triggered the competitive interaction with putative keystone taxa in the bacterial and fungal networks. Structural equation modeling suggested that the competitive interaction with keystone taxa promoted bacterial and fungal diversity and consequently reduced carbohydrate catabolism and soil metabolic quotient. Stable isotope probing incubations further provided consistent evidence of competition by keystone taxa with the increases in bacterial and fungal diversity under the biochar amendments.

Conclusions: We found that biochar-induced competition with keystone taxa stimulated the bacterial and fungal diversity and consequently decreased SOC mineralization. The comprehensive understanding of the unexplored biological mechanisms underlying the biochar-induced negative priming may provide crucial implications for enabling SOC sequestration.