No-Vacation Nation

This report reviewed international vacation and holiday laws and found that the United States is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers any paid vacation or holidays. As a result, 1 in 4 U.S. workers do not receive any paid vacation or paid holidays. The lack of paid vacation and paid holidays in the U.S. is particularly acute for lower-wage and part-time workers, and for employees of small businesses. This report also includes a comparative appendix with information on paid leave and holiday laws in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom

Phylogeny as a proxy for ecology in seagrass amphipods: which traits are most conserved?

Increasingly, studies of community assembly and ecosystem function combine trait data and phylogenetic relationships to gain novel insight into the ecological and evolutionary constraints on community dynamics. However, the key to interpreting these two types of information is an understanding of the extent to which traits are phylogenetically conserved. In this study, we develop the necessary framework for community phylogenetics approaches in a system of marine crustacean herbivores that play an important role in the ecosystem functioning of seagrass systems worldwide. For 16 species of amphipods and isopods, we (1) reconstructed phylogenetic relationships using COI, 16S, and 18S sequences and Bayesian analyses, (2) measured traits that are potentially important for assembling species between and within habitats, and (3) compared the degree to which each of these traits are evolutionarily conserved. Despite poor phylogenetic resolution for the order Amphipoda as a whole, we resolved almost all of the topology for the species in our system, and used a sampling of ultrametric trees from the posterior distribution to account for remaining uncertainty in topology and branch lengths. We found that traits varied widely in their degree of phylogenetic signal. Body mass, fecundity, and tube building showed very strong phylogenetic signal, and temperature tolerance and feeding traits showed much less. As such, the degree of signal was not predictable based on whether the trait is related to environmental filtering or to resource partitioning. Further, we found that even with strong phylogenetic signal in body size, (which may have large impacts on ecosystem function), the predictive relationship between phylogenetic diversity and ecosystem function is not straightforward. We show that patterns of phylogenetic diversity in communities of seagrass mesograzers could lead to a variety of interpretations and predictions, and that detailed study of trait similarities and differences will be necessary to interpret these patterns

No-Vacation Nation Revisited

This report reviews the most recently available data from a range of national and international sources on statutory requirements for paid vacations and paid holidays in 21 rich countries (16 European countries, Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States). In addition to our finding that the United States is the only country in the group that does not require employers to provide paid vacation time, we also note that several foreign countries offer additional time off for younger and older workers, shift workers, and those engaged in community service including jury duty. Five countries even mandate that employers pay vacationing workers a small premium above their standard pay in order to help with vacation-related expenses. Most other rich countries have also established legal rights to paid holidays over and above paid vacation days. We distinguish throughout the report between paid vacation -- or paid annual leave, terms we use interchangeably -- and paid holidays, which are organized around particular fixed dates in the calendar. Our analysis does not cover paid leave for other reasons such as sick leave, parental leave, or leave to care for sick relatives

Parental Leave Policies in 21 Countries: Assessing Generosity and Gender Equality

This report examines the parental leave policies in 21 high-income nations and identifies five "best practices" for parental leave policies. The study shows that the U.S. has the least generous leave policies of the 21 countries examined in the report. The states exhibiting the five best practices include Finland, France, Greece, Norway, Spain, and Sweden

Ten Bee Species New to Green Roofs in the Chicago Area

Green roofs increasingly provide habitat for many insects in urban environments. Pollinators such as bees may utilize foraging and nesting resources provided by green roofs but few studies have documented which species occur in these novel habitats. This study identified bees from 26 species, 11 genera and 5 families collected from 7 green roofs using pan trapping methods over 2 years. Ten of these species have not previously been recorded on green roofs in the Chicago region. Although the majority of bee species collected were solitary, soil-nesting, and native to Illinois, the proportion of exotic species was high compared to previous collections from Chicago area green roofs and urban parks. Urban green roofs may enhance populations of both native and exotic bees, but their ability to support the same range of native diversity recorded from other urban habitats requires further investigation

Creating regional crime statistics from administrative data

Abstract: The only publicly-available information on the geographical distribution of crime in New Zealand is offence statistics for police administrative units. We investigate whether existing data can be used to construct geographical crime statistics that correspond to regional councils, territorial authorities, and urban areas. Methods We build experimental output geographies from police stations, the smallest administrative unit for which there are long time series of offence statistics. We develop three rules for assigning police stations to the new geographies: one based on population, one based on land area, and one based on both. We assess the performance of these rules by calculating the proportion of national land area and population that is misclassified, and the number of target units that do not receive at least one police station. We also look at whether regional statistics on serious assaults are sensitive to the choice of allocation rule. Findings The new output geographies approximate the target geographies well. For instance, our preferred rule assigns 96 percent of the national population to the correct territorial authority. Moreover, a case study of serious assaults suggests that most regional crime statistics are not sensitive to the choice of rule. Conclusion The new output geographies perform sufficiently well that they could, if required, be used to produce regional crime statistics