Purpose Previous studies have found biochar-induced effects on native soil organic carbon (NSOC) decomposition, with a range of positive, negative and no priming reported. However, many uncertainties still exist regarding which parameters drive the amplitude and the direction of the biochar priming. Materials and methods We conducted a quantitative analysis of 1170 groups of data from 27 incubation studies using boosted regression trees (BRTs). BRT is a machine learning method combining regression trees and a boosting algorithm, which can effectively partition independent influences of various factors on the target variable in the complex ecological processes. Results and discussion The BRT model explained a total of 72.4% of the variation in soil carbon (C) priming following biochar amendment, in which incubation conditions (36.5%) and biochar properties (33.7%) explained a larger proportion than soil properties (29.8%). The predictors that substantially accounted for the explained variation included incubation time (27.1%) and soil moisture (5.0%), biochar C/N ratio (6.2%), nitrogen content (5.5%), pyrolysis time during biochar production (5.1%), biochar pH (4.5%), soil C content (5.2%), sand (4.7%) and clay content (4.1%). In contrast, other incubation conditions (temperature, biochar dose, whether nutrient was added), biochar properties (biochar C, feedstock type, ash content, pyrolysis temperature, whether biochar was activated) and soil properties (nitrogen content, silt content, C/N ratio, pH, land use type) had small contribution (each < 4%). Positive priming occurred within the first 2 years of incubations, with a change to negative priming afterwards. The priming was negative for low N biochar or in high-moisture soils but positive on their reverse sides. The size of negative priming increased with rising biochar C/N ratio, pyrolysis time and soil clay content, but deceased with soil C/N ratio. Conclusions We determine the critical drivers for biochar effect on native soil organic C cycling, which can help us to better predict soil C sequestration following biochar amendment.
