Classification of tropical hardwood samples by species and geographical origin

摘要

New regulations concerning the trade in protected tropical hardwoods require a way to assess the species and the country of origin for wood samples. Rosewoods from the Dalbergia genus are heavily traded and are now one of the wood sources that are controlled. While may efforts have been reported on characterization of the species of Dalbergia samples, none has investigated the feasibility of providing probable provenance of the sample by locating the country where the tree grew. This study reports use of several well-known classifiers applied to data from an extensive elemental analysis and isotope ratio analysis of 239 curated samples of wood from the genus Dalbergia. The species and the country of origin can be identified with about 90% balanced accuracy.