Statistics on bargraphs viewed as cornerless Motzkin paths

A bargraph is a self-avoiding lattice path with steps U=(0,1), H=(1,0) and D=(0,−1) that starts at the origin and ends on the x-axis, and stays strictly above the x-axis everywhere except at the endpoints. Bargraphs have been studied as a special class of convex polyominoes, and enumerated using the so-called wasp-waist decomposition of Bousquet-Mélou and Rechnitzer. In this paper we note that there is a trivial bijection between bargraphs and Motzkin paths without peaks or valleys. This allows us to use the recursive structure of Motzkin paths to enumerate bargraphs with respect to several statistics, finding simpler derivations of known results and obtaining many new ones. We also count symmetric bargraphs and alternating bargraphs. In some cases we construct statistic-preserving bijections between different combinatorial objects, proving some identities that we encounter along the way.