The responses of soil organic carbon and total nitrogen to chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction base on a meta-analysis

The overall magnitude of changes in SOC, TN, and C:N in response to chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction

The results showed that chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction significantly decreased SOC and TN by 2.76% and 4.19% respectively, while increased C:N by 6.11% across all database (Fig. 1). SOC mainly derives from crop residues and secretions which closely related to crops growths, and crops growths were affected by fertilization, especially nitrogen fertilization^20,21. The reduction of chemical nitrogen fertilizer led to poor crop growth, which reduced the amount of crop residues return, and then decreased SOC. Similarly, TN from crops was reduced due to poor crop growth. In addition, the reduction of chemical nitrogen fertilizers directly reduced the input of soil nitrogen. The increase of C:N was the result of the decrease of TN being greater than that of SOC. The responses of C:N to chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction enhanced the comprehension of the couple relationship between SOC and TN, which was beneficial to the evolution of the C-N coupling models. Moreover, the accuracy of C-N coupling models depends on the precise quantification of the responses of SOC and TN to nitrogen fertilization. And our results accurately quantified the difference responses of SOC and TN to different nitrogen fertilization regimes, thus optimizing the C-N coupling models.

Responses of SOC, TN and C:N to chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction magnitude

When grouped by chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction magnitude, SOC showed a significant increase by 6.9% in medium magnitude, while SOC was significantly decreased by 3.10% and 7.26% in high and total magnitude respectively (Fig. 1a). Liu and Greaver²² also stated the reduction of medium nitrogen fertilizer increased the average microbial biomass from 15 to 20%, thereby increasing the SOC content. Previous studies had reported that there were strong positive correlations between soil organic matter and soil microbial biomass in both the agricultural ecosystem and natural ecosystem^23,24. Numerous researchers have demonstrated the significance of nitrogen availability in soil for the plant biomass across most ecosystems^25,26. Moreover, nitrogen deficient would inhibit the activity of extracellular enzymes and root activities²⁷. Generally, soil degradation caused by continuous rising chemical nitrogen fertilizers application may inhibit the growth of crops and ultimately reduce the SOC²⁸.

TN showed no significant difference in low and medium chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction magnitude (p > 0.05), while TN in high magnitude and total chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction magnitude exhibited a decrease with 3.10% and 9.37% respectively (Fig. 1b). Numerous studies described that the amount of nitrogen fertilizers used in China was higher than the demand of N for crop, which caused serious N leaching and runoff^29,30. Chemical nitrogen fertilizers in low and medium magnitude would not decrease the TN of soil by reducing N leaching and runoff. However, the residual nitrogen in soil cannot meet the requirement for the sustainable growth of plant with litter or without exogenous nitrogen supplement, which resulted in the decrease of TN in high and total chemical nitrogen fertilizers magnitude. Consequently, optimal nitrogen fertilizers application rates will take into account crops yield and environment friendliness.

Additionally, C:N had a significant increase with ranging from 1.82% to 8.98% under the four chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction magnitude (Fig. 1c), suggesting the relative increase of SOC compared to TN. Previous studies have revealed that C:N had significantly influence on the soil bacterial community structures³¹. And there were also considerable studies indicated that chemical nitrogen fertilizers have impact on the soil bacterial communities^32,33. We may speculate that the change of C:N would bring about the variations of soil bacteria communities under the chemical nitrogen fertilizers regimes.

Responses of SOC, TN, and C:N to chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction duration

Negative response of SOC to short-term chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction was observed in our study, which was consistent with the study of Gong, et al.³⁴ that chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction decreased SOC by reducing crop-derived carbon by one year. However, SOC was significantly increased by 1.06% and 4.65% at mid-term and long-term chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction respectively, which was similar with the findings of Ning, et al.¹¹ that SOC was significantly increased under more than 5 years of chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction treatment. TN was significantly decreased by 1.96% at short-term chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction duration, while the results converted at mid-term chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction duration. The effect of long-term chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction on TN was not significant (p > 0.05). The divergent response of TN to different chemical nitrogen fertilizers duration was mainly caused by the various treatments. In terms of C:N, a greater positive response was observed at short-term chemical nitrogen fertilizers duration (9.06%) than mid-term and long-term duration (1.99%). Moreover, with the prolongation of the chemical reduction time of nitrogen, the response ratio tends to zero, suggesting that the effect of chemical fertilizers gradually decrease. This may be ascribed to the buffer capacity of soil to resist the changes from external environment, including nutrients, pollutants, and redox substances³⁵.

Responses of SOC, TN, and C:N to different chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction patterns

Under the pattern of chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction without organic fertilizers supplement, SOC and TN significantly decreased by 3.83% and 11.46% respectively, however, chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction with organic fertilizers supplement significantly increased SOC and TN by 4.92% and 8.33% respectively. Moreover, C:N significantly increased under the two chemical nitrogen fertilizers patterns (p < 0.05) (Fig. 1). To further analysis the importance of organic fertilizers application on SOC, TN and C:N, the total database was divided into two categories including reduction duration and reduction magnitude of each pattern. And the responses SOC, TN and C:N under the two chemical nitrogen fertilizers patterns of each categories were shown in the Fig. 2. In the pattern of chemical nitrogen fertilizers without organic fertilizers supplement, low and medium magnitude of chemical nitrogen fertilizers had no significantly influence on the response of SOC (p > 0.05), but there was a negative effect on SOC in high and total magnitude (p < 0.05). In terms of chemical fertilizer reduction duration, chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction decreased SOC by 3.8% and 4.2% at short and long term chemical nitrogen fertilizers duration respectively, while SOC showed no significantly decrease at mid-term duration (p > 0.05). The no significant decrease at mid-term duration might result from the limited information reported in original studies of this meta-analysis³⁶. TN showed no significant response to chemical nitrogen fertilizers without organic fertilizers supplement in the low and medium magnitude (p > 0.05). However, TN was significantly decreased by 8.62% and 16.7% respectively in the high and total magnitude. When regarding to chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction duration, TN was significantly reduced at all of the categories, ranging from 3.13% to 13.4% (Fig. 2c). In the pattern of chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction with organic fertilizers supplement, chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction at medium, high, and total magnitudes significantly increased SOC by 13.85%, 13.03%, and 5.46%respectively, however, the response of SOC in the low chemical nitrogen fertilizers magnitude was not significant. Chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction duration significantly increased SOC by 7.01%, 1.71%, and 22.02% in the short-term, mid-term, and long-term respectively. Comparatively, TN showed a significantly increase in most chemical nitrogen fertilizers categories expect for the long-term chemical nitrogen fertilizers duration, with an increasing from 4.90% to 14.69% (Fig. 2d).

Organic fertilizers were mainly derived from animal manure or crops straws, which contained large amount of organic matter and nitrogen elements^37,38. The application of organic fertilizers increased the input of SOC and TN directly. Moreover, organic fertilizer could promote the growth of crops by releasing phenols, vitamins, enzymes, auxins and other substances during the decomposition process, thus the SOC derived from crops would be increased^37,39. In addition, organic fertilizers provide various nutrients for microbial reproduction, which increase the microbial population and organic carbon and total nitrogen content³⁷. More importantly, the application of organic fertilizers could improve organic carbon sequestration and maintain its stability in aggregates, thereby reducing losses of SOC and TN⁴⁰.

C:N showed an increase under all of the chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction with organic fertilizer supplement. The positive response of C:N to organic fertilizer supplement may be related to the higher C:N of organic fertilizer than soil. The average values of C:N of the commonly used organic fertilizers including animal manure, crop straws and biochar were 14, 60 and 30 respectively, while the C:N of soil was lower than 10 in average according to extensive literature researches⁴¹. Therefore, organic fertilizers would be a favorable alternative of chemical fertilizers for the sustainable development of agriculture.

The correlation between the response of SOC, TN, and C:N and environmental variables

The analysis of linear regression was conducted to analyze the environmental variables including mean annual temperature (MAT), mean annual precipitation (MAP), accumulated temperature above 10 °C (MATA), which may exert influence on SOC, TN and C:N. No significant correlation among the lnRR of SOC, TN, C:N and environmental variables were observed among the whole database (p > 0.05; Fig. S1). Rule out the interference of organic fertilizers supplement, we analyzed the relationship between lnRR of SOC, TN, C:N and environmental variables as the Figures showed in Figs. 3 and 4 respectively. Under chemical nitrogen fertilizers without organic fertilizers supplement, there was a significant negative correlation between lnRR of SOC and MAT (p < 0.05, Fig. 3a) and a positively correlation between lnRR of TN and MATA (p < 0.05, Fig. 3h). However, there no significant relationship between lnRR of C:N and MAT, MAP, and MATA (p > 0.05). Apart from the significant negative correlation between the lnRR of SOC and MAT (p < 0.05, Fig. 4b) and the significant positive correlation between lnRR of C:N and MAT (p < 0.05, Fig. 4c), no other significant correlations was found between the lnRR of SOC, TN, C:N and environmental variables under the pattern of chemical nitrogen fertilizers with organic fertilizers supplement (p > 0.05, Fig. 4). The negative relationship between MAT and the effects of chemical nitrogen fertilizers reduction was mainly attributed to the high decomposition rate of soil organic matter under the conditions of high temperature^42,43. MATA is a necessary requirement for the growth of crops, and MATA could accurately reflect the growth status of crops^44,45. Although correlation did not prove causation, these findings suggested MATA had a significant effect on crop nitrogen.

Source: Ecology - nature.com