Original Research
Seasonal Study of Environmental Factors in Narragansett Bay from February 2022 - 2023
Graphs presented here are a sample of Andria Miller’s initial presentations of collected data.
This is an abbreviated figure temperature (°C; circles), salinity (squares), relative macronutrients (middle graph), and chlorophyll a concentrations (mg m-3; bottom graph) that varied widely in Narragansett Bay from February 2022 to February 2023. Each color represents a season (winter, spring, summer, and fall), and each shade represents size-fractionated biomass (large cells (>10 μm ) = dark shades; small cells (<10 μm ) = light shades).
High-resolution data was collected from Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay from February 2022 to 2023, providing invaluable insights into the seasonal variations affecting phytoplankton growth and grazing dynamics. This data, elucidated in Andria Miller's thesis project, "Impacts of seasonal variations on phytoplankton growth and grazing in Narragansett Bay," serves as one of the many resources for understanding the intricate ecological processes within the bay ecosystem.
Note the inclusion of color coded seasonal indicators. This addition of color marks the first collaboration with Cynthia Beth Rubin, who suggested that seasonal color world make the reading of the graphs more intuitive. This first consultation planted the seeds of the collaboration which eventually grew to include the addition of texture and color to graphs of elements, paving the way for the integration of scientific graphs into fully artistic imagery.
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| Original Graph with Filled in Forms |
We began the collaborative project with simple graphs of components, without texture or signifying color. The idea was to build on the lovely forms that created by simply graphing the data as curved lines. To generate the lines we used both Data Wrapper and Excel software, with very similar results.
We immediately identified a problem: filled in overlapping forms confused the relationship of data, as the translucent color naturally created another color in areas of overlap.
Here we see a year of sample data of salinity, temperature (heat), and chlorophyll. Although Chlorophyll is colored green, it only appears as green against the neutral gray of salinity.