Efficient Discrimination of Some Moss Species by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and Chemometrics

Abstract

Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) technique was used to classify 16 species from three moss families (Mielichhoferiaceae, Bryaceae, and Mniaceae). The FTIR spectra ranging from 4000 cm−1 to 400 cm−1 of the 16 species were obtained. To group the spectra according to their spectral similarity in a dendrogram, cluster analysis and principal component analysis (PCA) were performed. Cluster analysis combined with PCA was used to give a rough result of classification among the moss samples. However, some species belonging to the same genus exhibited very similar chemical components and similar FTIR spectra. Fourier self-deconvolution (FSD) was used to enhance the differences of the spectra. Discrete wavelet transform (DWT) was used to decompose the FTIR spectra of Mnium laevinerve and M. spinosum. Three scales were selected as the feature extracting space in the DWT domain. Results showed that FTIR spectroscopy combined with DWT was suitable for distinguishing different species of the same genus.