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Forensic soil provenancing in an urban/suburban setting: A simultaneous multivariate approach.

ABSTRACT: Soil is a ubiquitous material at the Earth's surface with potential to be a useful evidence class in forensic and intelligence applications. Compositional data from a soil survey over North Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, are used to develop and test an empirical soil provenancing method. Mineralogical data from Fourier Transform InfraRed spectroscopy (FTIR) and geochemical data from X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF; for total major oxides) and Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS; for both total and aqua regia-soluble trace elements) are obtained from the survey's 268 topsoil samples (0-5 cm depth; 1 sample per km² ). The simultaneous provenancing approach is underpinned by (i) the calculation of Spearman's correlation coefficients (r_S ) between an evidentiary sample and all the samples in the database for all variables generated by each analytical method; and (ii) the preparation of an interpolated raster grid of r_S for each evidentiary sample and method resulting in a series of provenance rasters ("heat maps"). The simultaneous provenancing method is tested on the North Canberra soil survey with three "blind" samples representing simulated evidentiary samples. Performance metrics of precision and accuracy indicate that the FTIR (mineralogy) and XRF (geochemistry) analytical methods offer the most precise and accurate provenance predictions. Maximizing the number of analytes/analytical techniques is advantageous in soil provenancing. Despite acknowledged limitations, it is concluded that the empirical soil provenancing approach can play an important role in forensic and intelligence applications.

SUBMITTER: de Caritat P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9305460 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundThe rapid expansion of urbanization leads to significant losses of soil ecological functions. Microbes directly participate in key soil processes and play crucial roles in maintaining soil functions. However, we still have a limited understanding of underlying mechanisms shaping microbial communities and the interactions among microbial taxa in park soils.MethodsIn this study, the community variations of bacteria and fungi in urban and suburban park soils were investigated in Shanghai, China. Real-time PCR and high-throughput Illumina sequencing were used to examine the microbial abundance and community composition, respectively.ResultsThe results showed that soil molecular biomass and fungal abundance in urban park soils were significantly higher than those in suburban park soils, while no significant difference was observed in the bacterial abundance between urban and suburban park soils. The alpha diversity of soil microbes in urban and suburban park soils was similar to each other, except for Chao1 index of fungal communities. The results of similarity analysis (ANOSIM) revealed remarkable differences in the composition of bacterial and fungal communities between urban and suburban park soils. Specifically, park soils in urban areas were enriched with the phyla Methylomirabilota and Verrucomicrobiota, while the relative abundance of Gemmatimonadota was higher in suburban park soils. Moreover, the fungal class Eurotiomycetes was also enriched in urban park soils. Compared with suburban park soils, nodes and average paths of the bacterial and fungal networks were higher in urban park soils, but the number of module hubs and connectors of the bacterial networks and negative interactions among bacterial taxa were lower. Compared with suburban park soils, Acidobacteriota bacterium and Mortierellomycota fungus played more important roles in the ecological networks of urban park soils. Soil available zinc (Zn), available nitrogen (N), pH, and total potassium (K) significantly affected fungal community composition in park soils in Shanghai. Soil available Zn was also the most important factor affecting the bacterial community composition in this study.ConclusionThere were significant differences in the soil molecular biomass, fungal abundance, and the community composition and co-occurrence relations of both soil bacterial and fungal communities between urban and suburban park soils. Soil available Zn played an important part in shaping the structures of both the bacterial and fungal communities in park soils in Shanghai.

Project description:Background Despite the recent trend toward developing and applying quality control measures in the forensic science disciplines, there is a heightened interest to efforts to ameliorate disparate quality among laboratories through the enforcement of standards and best practices.Objective This protocol aims to set up the Arab Forensic Laboratories Accreditation Center (AFLAC) to act as a key driving legal force for accreditation of the different forensic laboratories in the Arab region.Methods Upon its development, the Forensic Laboratory-Arabian Gate (FLAG) platform will serve as a preliminary stage for the AFLAC, and 2 preparatory steps will be achieved through the FLAG platform: the first one is a scoping study to analyze the international guidelines regarding the forensic laboratory practices in different specialties, and the second one is mapping surveys to explore how the international and national guidelines are translated into practice in Arab forensic laboratories. Development of the Arab forensic laboratories accreditation center will be initiated by building the AFLAC quality management system, which comprises formation of the forensic science committees to achieve the standards required for accreditation in each discipline. This will be followed by the attainment of regional accreditation recognition of the Arab Accreditation Cooperation (ARAC) and the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation. This recognition necessitates achieving International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission 17011 standard requirements prior to official application to the ARAC.Results The first phase of our work (the FLAG platform) began in February 2022 and is expected to end in December 2022. The FLAG platform was proposed to the Arab Society of Forensic Sciences and Forensic Medicine in March 2022, and we received approval to host this web development project. Subsequent phases are anticipated to begin in January 2023 and are expected to end in 2025.Conclusions This work describes our approach to provide a valuable tool for forensic laboratory accreditation services to promote the best practice and its consistency in the field of forensic sciences in the Arab region.International registered report identifier (irrid)PRR1-10.2196/36778.

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Forensic soil provenancing in an urban/suburban setting: A simultaneous multivariate approach.

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