Biochar is a promising novel material for mitigating phosphorus (P) loss and enhancing P retention in chemical-amended agricultural soils. However, the optimal application rate for aforesaid effectiveness and potential drivers of the process are not well understood. Herein, a column-based pot experiment was carried out to investigate how and to what extent reed-biochar is effective in positively triggering P loss and availability in paddy soils treated by chemical fertilizer. Compared with chemical-only treatment, the accumulated leakage of total P, dissoluble P, and particulate P in chemical fertilizer coupled with 1-4% reed-biochar treatment decreased by 5.3-13.3%, 8.3-10.4%, and 3.0-15.4%, respectively. The accumulated leakage of total P and dissoluble P in 6-8% rate treatments was increased by 5.6-7.5% and 18.3-32.9%, respectively. Increasing reed-biochar rate from 1% to 8% caused an enhancement in soil total P and available P content and P activation coefficient, and the 4% rate achieved a similar effectiveness to the higher rate. Reed-biochar application increased the abundance and diversty of soil phoD-harboring microbes (P < 0.05), while the increment had little to do with the application rate. Soil phoD-harboring community composition and total C content were the main predictors of the P leaching losses, and meanwhile, the total C content was the dominated predictor of soil P retention and availability. These results suggest that adding 1-4% reed-biochar was more beneficial to mitigate paddy P loss and to enhance soil P availability. This study highlights the importance of understanding how microbial populations mediate P transformation to decipher the biochar-driven improvement of soil P utilization.
Keywords: Microbial community; Paddy soil; Phosphatase; Phosphorus loss; Reed biochar; phoD gene.
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