Nitzschia closterium and Nitzschia longissima are two species of diatom that are extremely difficult to differentiate using light microscopy. This paper details an investigation into the use of FT-IR microscopy combined with discriminant analysis to differentiate between these species. Spectra were taken from unidentified samples and classified against a training set using either Mahalanobis distances or principal component analysis combined with canonical discriminant analysis. Unidentified samples were classified with a 100% accuracy using both mathematical techniques.
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