Timber origin verification using mass spectrometry: Challenges, opportunities, and way forward

Abstract

To fight the illegal timber trade, there is an increasing need to accurately verify or determine the harvest origin of timber. Next to genetic methods, mass spectrometry is being pushed forward as a possible tool towards this problem, especially via stable isotope ratio analysis (SIRA) and direct analysis in real time – time of flight mass spectrometry (DART-TOFMS). However, there are key scientific questions that need to be answered before these techniques can be scaled up and routinely and robustly applied. For SIRA, we need to understand better the effects of single ring versus ring pooling, cellulose versus whole wood and species or site differences. For DART-TOFMS, we need to investigate what drives the differences in metabolomic fingerprint between locations, and how much of that difference can be attributed to environmental or genetic effects, especially if we want to advance the use of DART-TOFMS for timber origin questions. In this paper, the important difference between origin verification and determination is discussed, a review of the state of the art is provided and a way forward and experimental design is presented to tackle these scientific questions.