Filtering by
- Language: English
Surveys have shown that several hundred billion weather forecasts are obtained by the United States public each year, and that weather news is one of the most consumed topics in the media. This indicates that the forecast provides information that is significant to the public, and that the public utilizes details associated with it to inform aspects of their life. Phoenix, Arizona is a dry, desert region that experiences a monsoon season and extreme heat. How then, does the weather forecast influence the way Phoenix residents make decisions? This paper aims to draw connections between the weather forecast, decision making, and people who live in a desert environment. To do this, a ten-minute survey was deployed through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) in which 379 respondents were targeted. The survey asks 45 multiple choice and ranking questions categorized into four sections: obtainment of the forecast, forecast variables of interest, informed decision making based on unique weather variables, and demographics. This research illuminates how residents in the Phoenix metropolitan area use the local weather forecast for decision-making on daily activities, and the main meteorological factors that drive those decisions.
Nutrient recycling by fish can be an important part of nutrient cycles in both freshwater and marine ecosystems. As a result, understanding the mechanisms that influence excretion elemental ratios of fish is of great importance to a complete understanding of aquatic nutrient cycles. As fish consume a wide range of diets that differ in elemental composition, stoichiometric theory can inform predictions about dietary effects on excretion ratios.
We conducted a meta-analysis to test the effects of diet elemental composition on consumption and nutrient excretion by fish. We examined the relationship between consumption rate and diet N : P across all laboratory studies and calculated effect sizes for each excretion metric to test for significant effects.
Consumption rate of N, but not P, was significantly negatively affected by diet N : P. Effect sizes of diet elemental composition on consumption-specific excretion N, P and N : P in laboratory studies were all significantly different from 0, but effect size for raw excretion N : P was not significantly different from zero in laboratory or field surveys.
Our results highlight the importance of having a mechanistic understanding of the drivers of consumer excretion rates and ratios. We suggest that more research is needed on how consumption and assimilation efficiency vary with N : P and in natural ecosystems in order to further understand mechanistic processes in consumer-driven nutrient recycling.
Grasshoppers Regulate N: P Stoichiometric Homeostasis by Changing Phosphorus Contents in Their Frass
The City of Phoenix Street Transportation Department partnered with the Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Service at Arizona State University (ASU) and researchers from various ASU schools to evaluate the effectiveness, performance, and community perception of the new pavement coating. The data collection and analysis occurred across multiple neighborhoods and at varying times across days and/or months over the course of one year (July 15, 2020–July 14, 2021), allowing the team to study the impacts of the surface treatment under various weather conditions.