Strontium isotope ratio analysis: A forensic approach to tracing the provenance of Amazonian wood

• Grant number: 25/18412-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: December 30, 2025
• End date: June 25, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Chemistry - Analytical Chemistry
• Principal Investigator: Elisabete Aparecida de Nadai Fernandes
• Grantee: Gabriele Rossini Moreira
• Supervisor: Frank Vanhaecke
• Host Institution: Centro de Energia Nuclear na Agricultura (CENA). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Ghent University (UGent), Belgium
• Associated to the scholarship: 22/16919-2 - Forensic discrimination of wood species from the Amazon region to identify geographic origin, BP.DR

Abstract

Geographical origin traceability is a key strategy to promote sustainable forest management and combat illegal logging. Preliminary results from my ongoing PhD project funded by FAPESP (grant number 2022/16919-2) indicate that chemical signatures are promising tools for identifying the geographical provenance of Amazonian wood. However, the high species diversity and environmental variability across the region pose challenges to the development of robust models, requiring the integration of multiple datasets to identify consistent patterns and ensure the accuracy and reliability of predictive models used for wood traceability. Within this framework, the strontium (¿¿Sr/¿¿Sr isotope ratio) emerges as a robust geochemical tracer, since Sr is passively absorbed by plants and its isotopic signature directly reflects the geochemical characteristics of the soil, without undergoing significant alteration by biological or physicochemical processes. Thus, the central objective of this research project is to evaluate the potential of the ¿¿Sr/¿¿Sr isotope ratio as a high-precision geochemical tracer for tracing the provenance of Amazonian wood. The determination of the ¿¿Sr/¿¿Sr ratio in wood samples will be performed using multi-collector inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS), a technique widely recognized for its high precision and accuracy in isotopic analysis. The analytical procedure will include a rigorous sample preparation protocol, particularly focused on chromatographic Sr isolation. This work will be carried out in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Frank Vanhaecke, from the Department of Chemistry at Ghent University, an internationally recognized expert in high-precision isotopic analysis. The incorporation of isotopic approaches has the potential to significantly enhance the predictive models developed, increasing their classification accuracy and contributing to the traceability of wood species threatened by illegal exploitation in the Amazon.