Detaljhandeln har under en längre tid gjort en förflyttning från fysiska butiker till internetbaserad handel, så kallad e-handel. Sedan år 2020 har e-handeln ökat med 60 procent som följd av coronapandemin. Denna utveckling beror på att nya konsumenter har börjat handla via internet och att redan befintliga e-handelskunder har ökat inköpen, vilket medför att många idag är mer vana vid att handla online.  Det finns många olika typer av e-handelssidor. Den största andelen riktas direkt till konsumenter. Många webbplatser inom e-handeln har idag ett stort utbud av produkter, vilket leder till informationstunga menyer. Det ställer större krav på navigationsstrukturen och hittbarheten, då det påverkar användarnas upplevelse av interaktionen med systemet. Eftersom användare har olika strategier för att nå informationsmålen behöver e-handelssidor vara uppbyggda baserat på kunskapen om kategorisering av produkter och etiketter. Det måste också finnas förståelse för användarnas beteendemönster kring navigeringsstrategier, så att systemet hjälper användare att nå informationsmålen och ger en positiv användarupplevelse. Syftet med denna studie var att skapa kunskap och förståelse kring vilka faktorer inom e-handelns globala och lokala navigation, avseende UX och hittbarhet, som påverkar konsumenters användarupplevelse. Tidigare forskning påvisar att det kritiska designproblemet inte är att förse användare med så mycket information som möjligt utan att lättare kunna hitta rätt information. Hur människor navigerar på webben för att uppfylla informationsbehov är ofta genom att på kort tid erhålla så mycket väsentlig information som möjligt. Det förklarar i huvudsak varför de inte planlöst scrollar och klickar på länkar. Undersökningsmetoderna som har tillämpats i denna studie var kvalitativa användartester som observerades, följt av en SUS-utvärdering och kompletterande kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer. Användarstudien genomfördes vid ett datainsamlingstillfälle och metoderna ansågs lämpade för att ta reda på användarnas subjektiva erfarenheter, upplevelser, attityder och uppfattningar. Det kunde konstateras genom studien att olika faktorer påverkar användarupplevelsen både positivt och negativt. Det är individuellt hur användare navigerar på webbplatsen, tolkar etiketter samt vilka produkter de förväntas hitta under viss kategorisering. Ett generellt beteende kunde även påvisas gällande navigeringsstrategier, tolkning av etiketter och förväntningar på produkters placeringar som ofta grundades i en igenkänningsfaktor baserad på tidigare erfarenheter. / Retail has for a long time gone from physical stores to internet-based trade. In addition, e-commerce has expanded by 60 percent since 2020 as a result of the Corona pandemic. This development is partly due to the fact that new consumers have switched to shopping online, existing e-commerce customers have increased spending and that the habit of shopping online has increased. Today, there are many different types of e-commerce sites. The largest share is aimed directly at consumers. Many Websites in e-commerce today have a wide range of products, which leads to information-heavy menus. This requires greater demands on the navigation structure and findability as it affects the user experience of interacting with the system. Because users have different strategies for achieving their information goals, e-commerce Websites must be built based on the knowledge of categorizing products and labels. There must also be an understanding of users' behavioral patterns in their navigation strategies, so that the system helps to achieve the users information goals and provides a positive user experience. The purpose of this study was to examine the factors in e-commerce's global and local navigation, regarding UX and findability that affect consumers' experience. Previous research shows that the critical design problem is not to gather as much information as possible but rather finding the right information. The way people navigate the web to meet their information needs are often by obtaining as much essential information as possible in a short period of time. This mainly explains why they do not scroll and click on links aimlessly. The survey methods applied in this study were qualitative user tests that were observed, followed by a system usability scale (SUS), and supplementary qualitative semi-structured interviews. The user study was conducted at one data collection occasion and the methods were considered suitable to find out the users' subjective experiences, attitudes and perceptions. It could be ascertained through the study that various factors affect the user experience both positively and negatively. It is individual how the user navigates the website, interprets labels and which products they expect to find under a certain categorization. A general behavior could also be demonstrated regarding navigation strategies, interpretation of labels and expectations of product placement, which were often based on a recognition factor based on previous experience.

In this paper, we develop a stochastic differential equation model to simulate the movement of a social/subsocial spider species, Anelosimus studiosus, during prey capture using experimental data collected in a structured environment. In a subsocial species, females and their maturing offspring share a web and cooperate in web maintenance and prey capture. Furthermore, observations indicate these colonies change their positioning throughout the day, clustered during certain times of the day while spaced out at other times. One key question was whether or not the spiders spaced out "optimally" to cooperate in prey capture. In this paper, we first show the derivation of the model where experimental data is used to determine key parameters within the model. We then use this model to test the success of prey capture under a variety of different spatial configurations for varying colony sizes to determine the best spatial configuration for prey capture.

Niche partitioning is a major component in understanding community ecology and how different species divide limited environmental resources, enabling them to coexist. Temporal niche partitioning has been widely studied in a broad sense, such as in species that forage on similar nutritional sources dividing activity along diurnal and nocturnal classifications. Here, we approach this temporal niche partitioning with higher resolution to investigate partitioning between species within the same broad temporal and foraging niche. Two species of diurnal orb-weaving spiders (Araneae: Araneidae), Verrucosa arenata and Micrathena gracilis, both construct their orbs in spatially similar locations throughout the understory of deciduous forests in the morning, forage on flying insects throughout the day, and retreat in the evening. However, despite consisting of what appear to be roughly similar total lengths of adhesive silk in the capture spiral, overall orb structure is starkly different: V. arenata orbs are relatively large in diameter and sparse with capture threads; M. gracilis orbs, condensed in diameter and tightly coiled. What other differences might distinguish foraging strategy within this same niche? With extensive observation in their natural environment, we have found that these two species employ two distinct strategies by modulating behavior and orb structure: V. arenata construct orbs earlier in the day, resulting in a longer foraging period. However, V. arenata webs are more likely to be destroyed during the day such that there is a higher variance in foraging duration in V. arenata. We also found that V. arenata actively capture and consume more large prey and that M. gracilis more passively capture and consume small prey more reliably. These data suggest that these species have evolved different foraging strategies with V. arenata being risk-prone and M. gracilis being risk-averse. This study provides a more nuanced analysis of niche partitioning between species occupying otherwise similar temporal, habitat, and foraging niches.

Vigilance behavior can aid in the detection of predators and may also play a role in observation of conspecifics, in food acquisition, and in the prevention of kleptoparasitism. However, in most occasions, vigilance is most important as an antipredator function. Generally, factors that increase the risk of predation also increase the amount of vigilance. We examined whether the reintroduction of the large predator, the wolf, in Yellowstone National Park (YNP) would influence coyote vigilance and foraging ecology. From December 1997 to July 2000, we collected 1743 h of coyote activity budgets. Coyote home ranges occurred within wolf territories (termed high-use or nonbuffer zone areas) and also between them in buffer zones. In high wolf use areas as well as when wolves were present, coyotes fed on carcasses much more; however, they increased the amount of vigilance and decreased rest to prevent predation. Wolf kills may provide a quick source of food and be energetically advantageous to coyotes; however, costs include increased vigilance, decreased rest, and a higher predation risk. Vigilance and avoidance behavioral responses to the reintroduction of large predators may ultimately be more common outcomes than actual killing by competing carnivores of prey. Keystone carnivore reintroductions have a variety of cascading effects throughout the ecosystem and can be driven by both numeric responses (trophic cascades) and behavioral responses ("behavioral cascades"). Behavioral cascades resulting from increased vigilance or spatial changes may lead ultimately to numeric changes and trophic cascades.

No description available.

Turbidity is an important measurement of water quality, considering it describes water clarity and is an indirect indicator of light transmittance in the water column. Turbidity may impact fish that rely on vision to forage by affecting ability to search for prey. Largemouth bass (LMB; Micropterus salmoides) is a visual predator that may have lower foraging success resulting in reduced growth, reproduction, or survival under conditions of high turbidity. I conducted a field experiment in Wolf Lake, Mississippi to assess impacts of turbidity on diet and distribution and a laboratory experiment with manipulated turbidity levels (0 – 250 NTU) to assess foraging efficiency of LMB. There were no significant relationships between turbidity and diet or distribution in the field study. However, there were significant effects of turbidity on foraging efficiency in laboratory trials. These results indicate that assessing turbidity is important to manage LMB in systems susceptible to high turbidity levels.

During 2008 – 2009, we quantified foraging behavior of adult Atlantic puffins (Fratercula arctica) by deploying time-depth recorders (TDRs) on 18 adults and collected morphological measurements from 40 adults nesting on Petit Manan Island, Maine. Dive data were successfully retrieved from 5 birds foraging for 14 days in 2008, and 8 birds foraging for 18 days in 2009. Pooling across all birds, a total of 8,097 dives were recorded, with peaks in activity during 0400-0800 and 1600-2000, and no diving between 2100 and 0400. Mean (± SD) dives/bird/day was 276.4 (± 84.7), with dives grouped into bouts lasting 17.8 (± 31.5) minutes, consisting of 8.9 (± 3.4) dives. Dive depth was less than 15 m for 86% of the dives. Mean maximum dive depth across birds was 9.7 (± 1.7) m, with the deepest dive being 40.7 m. Females made fewer deep dives (27-41 m), had more midday dives (1000 - 1559), and their dives were spread across a greater number of bouts per day than males. Given a mean foraging trip length of 60.1 (± 38.3) minutes for 26 birds observed in 2009, we estimate that adult puffins foraged, on average, within 31 km of the colony. Morphological measures were recorded by a single observer and included body mass, wing chord, bill depth, bill length, culmen, and head-bill length, and represented 19 males and 21 females, based on blood sample analysis. Data were analyzed using classification trees, and our final tree used culmen length and bill depth to correctly classify 34 of 40 (85%) birds (kappa = 0.695, P < 0.01). Use of our model can greatly improve the ability of biologists to identify sex of puffins in the field at this colony site, but variability in morphological data we collected at addition colonies indicates that future work is needed to determine its applicability throughout the Gulf of Maine. During 2009, we measured burrow characteristics of alcids and empty burrows. Breeding success and burrow characteristics were measured for nests of 104 puffins, 58 guillemots and 4 razorbills, with burrow characteristics measured for an additional 12 guillemot and 56 empty burrows. Mean diameter of burrow openings of puffins, guillemots, razorbills and empty burrows were significantly different, and artificial puffin burrows had significantly smaller openings than natural while artificial and natural guillemot burrows had similar opening diameters. Hatch, chick, and nest success of puffins was similar among burrow types, but guillemots had higher hatch and nest success in artificial burrows. The variables we used to create models for predicting hatch and nest success for puffins and guillemots had inadequate discriminatory power to predict success.

No description available.

No description available.

Aspen is a key resource in the Rocky Mountain Region for wildlife forage and habitat, lumber products, scenery, and plays important roles in fire ecology and hydrological processes. There is evidence of aspen decline over much of the Intermountain West for approximately 100 years. In Dixie and Fishlake National Forests, UT, aspen distribution has decreased by nearly half. Causes of this decline are not well understood, although wildlife browsing by ungulates has been implicated as playing a major role. The objective of this research was to examine what soil or plant factors might be involved in wildlife browse choice in aspen. Twenty-two pairs of moderately and intensively browsed sites were studied to identify factors related to browse preferences over two field seasons. In the summer of 2008, sites were sampled in June, July, and August, and in the summer of 2009 sites were sampled in August only. Soils were analyzed for pH, EC, total nitrogen and carbon, and mineral nutrients. Leaf tissue samples were analyzed for defense chemical (tannin and phenolic glycoside) concentrations, mineral nutrients (via acid digestion), acid-detergent fiber, water content, carbon:nitrogen ratio, and non-structural carbohydrate (sugar) concentration. No significant difference in phenolic glycoside concentrations between moderately and intensively browsed sites was found. Tannins were highest in sites with intensive levels of browsing. Iron was significantly higher and zinc lower in intensively than moderately browsed sites. Leaf moisture was also significantly lower in intensively browsed sites. In the absence of differences in phenolic glycosides, ungulates may be selecting browse sites based on iron requirements. Seasonal changes in the studied factors could be identified in 2008. Over the course of the summer, we found significant decreases in nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, zinc, iron, copper, phenolic glycosides, and moisture concentration. Seasonal increases in calcium, sodium, tannins, sugars, acid-detergent fiber, and carbon:nitrogen ratios were observed. The need for large ungulates to obtain specific nutrients may indicate that aspen is in higher demand as a forage at different times of the year, particularly in areas with forages low in these nutrients. Our data suggest that aspen high in iron may be at risk since other factors explaining browsing choice were not significantly different in our study. This information can help identify clones that are at risk and direct resources where and when they are needed most.