Combining bioenergy land use with biochar production could represent a win-win management strategy to increase energy production whilst reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, a fuller understanding of the effects that these changes in land use and soil amendment could have on soil biodiversity and processes is needed. We performed a 2-year field experiment to determine the consequences of adding three different amounts of biochar (10 t ha⁻¹, 25 t ha⁻¹ and 50 t ha⁻¹) to a commercial Miscanthus bioenergy plantation on soil invertebrate community structure and abundances of enchytraeids, collembolans, mites and earthworms. We also used stable isotope analyses to determine shifts in feeding preferences and to quantify C assimilation by those soil organisms most likely to be affected by soil amendments (i.e. soil ingesters: earthworms and enchytraeids). Results showed that biochar additions to the soil had a negative effect on larger-sized soil fauna (earthworms) significantly reducing their population sizes and species richness whereas, in contrast, mesofauna appeared to benefit from the input of the biochar. Although significant assimilation of new C by anecic earthworms was observed, it was clearly insufficient to support population growth and, more importantly, the dominant ecological group in these agricultural soils (endogeics) showed the lowest assimilation values. These results indicate that biochar additions might result in the loss of some of the ecosystem services provided by earthworms, an important concern in these intensively managed agricultural soils. Finally, our findings highlight the need for more field research at species level to fully elucidate the mechanisms driving the biological responses to these types of ecosystem management.

将生物能源土地利用与生物炭生产结合起来，可以代表一种双赢的管理战略，即增加能源产量同时减少温室气体排放。但是，需要对土地利用和土壤改良的这些变化可能对土壤生物多样性和过程产生的影响有更全面的了解。我们进行了为期两年的野外试验，以确定向商业芒草中添加三种不同量的生物炭（10 t ha ^-1、25 t ha ^-1和50 t ha ^-1）的后果。生物能源种植对土壤无脊椎动物群落结构和甲虫，胶体虫，螨虫和earth的丰富度。我们还使用了稳定的同位素分析来确定进食偏好的变化，并量化那些最有可能受到土壤改良剂影响的土壤生物（例如，土壤虫：earth和肠线虫）对碳的吸收。结果表明，向土壤中添加生物炭对较大的土壤动物（ear）有负面影响，这大大降低了它们的种群数量和物种丰富度，而中小型动物似乎受益于生物炭的输入。尽管观察到了an对新C的大量吸收，但显然不足以支持种群增长，更重要的是，这些农业土壤中的优势生态群（内生地理）显示出最低的同化值。这些结果表明，添加生物炭可能会导致worm提供的某些生态系统服务丧失，这是在这些集约化管理的农业土壤中的一个重要问题。最后，我们的发现强调需要在物种水平上进行更多的现场研究，以充分阐明驱动对这些类型的生态系统管理进行生物反应的机制。