86 CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSIONS
7.1
CONCLUSIONS ABOUT THE INFLUENCE OF TREES ON LEACHATE
The influence of trees on the molecular fingerprint is statistically significant and throughout the statistical analyses of the data matrix, coniferous and deciduous trees could be differentiated based upon their molecular fingerprints. Three molecular fingerprint compounds, methyl cyclopentenone (birch to spruce, p<0.007; aspen to spruce, p<0.035), methylated indene (birch to aspen, p<0.045) and dimethoxy phenol (birch to spruce, p<0.020) appeared to be more statistically connected to trees than to the other vegetation attributes. This connection could indicate a closer relationship between the molecular fingerprint compounds and the specific tree attributes. For instance, methyl cyclopentenone appears to be directly related to spruce based on the strong statistical p-values and PCA loading plots (Table 8 and Figure 5). Also, there appears to be an underlying influence of spruce upon the leachates obtained from CPCRW from to the relationship between methoxy phenol and dimethoxy phenol.