A novel exploratory chemometric approach to environmental monitorring by combining block clustering with Partial Least Square (PLS) analysis

A novel exploratory chemometric approach to environmental monitorring by combining block clustering with Partial Least Square (PLS) analysis

BMC Chemistry, August 2013

23987502

Dragos V Nica, Despina Maria Bordean, Ioan Pet, Elena Pet, Simion Alda, Iosif Gergen

Given the serious threats posed to terrestrial ecosystems by industrial contamination, environmental monitoring is a standard procedure used for assessing the current status of an environment or trends in environmental parameters. Measurement of metal concentrations at different trophic levels followed by their statistical analysis using exploratory multivariate methods can provide meaningful information on the status of environmental quality. In this context, the present paper proposes a novel chemometric approach to standard statistical methods by combining the Block clustering with Partial least square (PLS) analysis to investigate the accumulation patterns of metals in anthropized terrestrial ecosystems. The present study focused on copper, zinc, manganese, iron, cobalt, cadmium, nickel, and lead transfer along a soil-plant-snai food chain, and the hepatopancreas of the Roman snail (Helix pomatia) was used as a biological end-point of metal accumulation.