Trade in products from endangered species is prohibited under the terms of the United Nation's CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) Treaty and the JEOL AccuTOF™-DART® plays an important role in identifying illegally traded products. To aid in enforcing CITES protections for global timber trafficing, the US Fish and Wildlife Forensic Lab has developed and validated methods using the AccuTOF-DART to identify wood from endangered species such as Dalbergia nigra (Brazilian rosewood) prized for the beauty of its wood and its acoustic properties in musical instruments. The ForeST© (Forensic Spectra of Trees) database created at the USFWS Forensic Lab contains AccuTOF-DART mass spectra of wood from virtually all of the CITES-protected timber. The AccuTOF-DART has also been used to identify products from other endangered species such as pangolin scales and rhinoceros horn.
In 2022 an article was published on this technique that relies on mass spectra chemotypes for timber species assignment and demonstrates that it provides high reliability for enforcing logging quotas and species protections laws. You can read more at Forensic Science International: Animals and Environments.
The JEOL AccuTOF atmospheric pressure time-of-flight mass spectrometer is the native platform for the DART ion source. The DART source mounts directly on the JEOL AccuTOF without requiring extra interface pumps, flanges, or tubes that can influence the DART chemistry and make database matching very difficult or impossible. The JEOL AccuTOF atmospheric pressure interface is rugged, robust, and resistant to contamination such as wood splinters, and is superior to other systems.
Chemometric analysis of two closely related species and a spectrum of Dalbergia nigra (Brazilian rosewood) labeled with chemical compounds detected in a ForeST database spectrum.
Links to stories about the AccuTOF-DART and protected species:
Publications
- Lancaster, C.; Espinoza, E. Analysis of select Dalbergia and trade timber using direct analysis in real time and time-of-flight mass spectrometry for CITES enforcement;
Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry
2012,
26, 1147-1156.
- Lancaster, C.; Espinoza, E. Evaluating agarwood products for 2-(2-phenylethyl)chromones using direct analysis in real time time-of-flight mass spectrometry;
Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry
2012,
26, 2649-2656.
- Espinoza, E. O.; Lancaster, C. A.; Kreitals, N. M.; Hata, M.; Cody, R. B.; Blanchette, R. A. Distinguishing Wild from Cultivated Agarwood (Aquilaria spp.) Using Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART™) and Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry;
Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry
2014,
28, 1-9.
- Espinoza, E. O.; Wiemann, M. C.; Barajas-Morales, J.; Chavarria, G. D.; McClure, P. J. FORENSIC ANALYSIS OF CITES-PROTECTED TIMBER FROM THE AMERICAS;
IAWA Journal
2015,
36, 311-325.
- Musah, R. A.; Espinoza, E. O.; Cody, R. B.; Lesiak, A. D.; Christensen, E. D.; Moore, H. E.; Maleknia, S.; Drijfhout, F. P. A High Throughput Ambient Mass Spectrometric Approach to Species Identification and Classification from Chemical Fingerprint Signatures;
Sci. Rep.
2015,
5.
- Deklerck, V.; Finch, K.; Gasson, P.; Bulcke, J. V. d.; Acker, J. V.; Beeckman, H.; Espinoza, E. Comparison of species classification models of mass spectrometry data: Kernel Discriminant Analysis vs Random Forest; A case study of Afrormosia (Pericopsis elata (Harms) Meeuwen);
Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry
2017,
31, 1582-1588.
- Evans, P. D.; Mundo, I. A.; Wiemann, M. C.; Chavarria, G. D.; McClure, P. J.; Voin, D.; Espinoza, E. O. Identification of selected CITES-protected Araucariaceae using DART TOFMS;
IAWA Journal
2017,
38, 266-S263.
- Finch, K.; Espinoza, E.; Jones, F. A.; Cronn, R. Source Identification of Western Oregon Douglas-Fir Wood Cores Using Mass Spectrometry and Random Forest Classification;
Applications in Plant Sciences
2017,
5, 1600158.
- Price, E. R.; McClure, P. J.; Jacobs, R. L.; Espinoza, E. O. Identification of rhinoceros keratin using direct analysis in real time time-of-flight mass spectrometry and multivariate statistical analysis;
Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry
2018,
32, 2106-2112.
- Deklerck, V.; Mortier, T.; Goeders, N.; Cody, R. B.; Waegeman, W.; Espinoza, E.; Van Acker, J.; Van den Bulcke, J.; Beeckman, H. A protocol for automated timber species identification using metabolome profiling;
Wood Science and Technology
2019.