Forensic comparative analysis of soils by the method of sporo-pollen analysis using projection to latent structures discriminant analysis

Abstract

Extensive use of sporo-pollen analysis is largely conditioned by such specific features of pollen and spores as their very-large-scale production in plants, the ability to preserve in soils, presence of characteristic morphological features enabling to distinguish and identify individual taxa, etc. In Belarus, the method of sporo-pollen analysis has also been implemented while forensic soil examination: it is increasingly applied to solve identification tasks in comparative analysis to establish the belonging of soil layers on physical evidence to the searched area. Its main advantage is that it is a multicomponent analysis allowing to evaluate both the composition of palynoflora and the percentage of several dozen components of sporo-pollen spectra contained in soil samples. Therefore, to determine the belonging of soil layers on physical evidence to the searched area, most informative are data obtained while sporo-pollen analysis, helping forensic experts on the basis of a specific taxonomic composition  of pollen and spores and percentage of spectra components to draw the most valid conclusions. Detection of pollen and spores in studied samples in a quantity sufficient for comparative analysis enables to statistically process data of samples microscopic examination. Statistical processing of results is one of the characteristic features of sporo-pollen analysis as a method that distinguishes it from other methods implemented in multidisciplinary forensic examination of soil.