The warm, equable, and ice-free early Eocene Epoch permits investigation of ecosystem function and macro-ecological patterns during a very different climate regime than exists today. It also provides insight into what the future may entail, as anthropogenic CO2 release drives Earth toward a comparable hothouse condition. Studying plant–insect herbivore food webs during hothouse intervals is warranted, because these account for the majority of nonmicrobial terrestrial biodiversity. Here, we report new plant and insect herbivore damage census data from two floodplain sites in the Wind River Basin of central Wyoming, one in the Aycross Formation (50–48.25 Ma) at the basin edge (WRE) and the second in the Wind River Formation in the interior of the basin (WRI). The WRI site is in stratigraphic proximity to a volcanic ash that is newly dated to 52.416 ± 0.016/0.028/0.063 (2σ). We compare the Wind River Basin assemblages to published data from a 52.65 Ma floodplain flora in the neighboring Bighorn (BH) Basin and find that only 5.6% of plant taxa occur at all three sites and approximately 10% occur in both basins. The dissimilar floras support distinct suites of insect herbivores, as recorded by leaf damage. The relatively low-diversity BH flora has the highest diversity of insect damage, contrary to hypotheses that insect herbivore diversity tracks floral diversity. The distinctiveness of the WRE flora is likely due to its younger age and cooler reconstructed paleotemperature, but these factors are nearly identical for the WRI and BH floras. Site-specific microenvironmental factors that cannot be measured easily in deep time may account for these differences. Alternatively, the Owl Creek Mountains between the two basins may have provided a formidable barrier to the thermophilic organisms that inhabited the basin interiors, supporting Janzen's hypothesis that mountain passes appear higher in tropical environments.

The geologic setting of the Ziegler Reservoir fossil site is somewhat unusual — the sediments containing the Pleistocene fossils were deposited in a lake on top of a ridge. The lake basin was formed near Snowmass Village, Colorado (USA) when a glacier flowing down Snowmass Creek Valley became thick enough to overtop a low point in the eastern valley wall and entered the head of Brush Creek Valley. When the glacier retreated at about 155–130 ka, near the end of Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage 6, the Brush Creek Valley lobe left behind a moraine that impounded a small alpine lake. The lake was initially ~ 10 m deep and appears to have been highly productive during most of its existence, based on the abundant and exquisitely preserved organic material present in the sediments. Over time, the basin slowly filled with (mostly) eolian sediment such that by ~ 87 ka it contained a marsh or wetland rather than a true lake. Open-water conditions returned briefly between ~ 77 and 55 ka before the impoundment was finally breached to the east, establishing ties with the Brush Creek drainage system and creating an alpine meadow that persisted until historic times.

Pleistocene biogeography of conifer species is poorly known in much of western North America. We conducted morphological studies on 201 conifer cones and cone fragments recovered from Pleistocene sediments at the Ziegler Reservoir fossil site (2705 m) near Snowmass Village, Colorado. The basin, formed ~155–130 ka, contains fossil-bearing lacustrine, palustrine, and colluvial sediments spanning approximately 85 ka. Using a suite of morphological characters, particularly cone-scale bracts, we differentiated species of Abies, Picea, and Pseudotsuga. All fossil Abies specimens were assignable based on bract morphology to Abies concolor, which is currently absent from central Colorado (nearest populations are 160 km southwest of the site). A. concolor occurs only in sediments of MIS 5d and 5c. Pseudotsuga menziesii and Picea engelmannii cones occurred in sediments corresponding to MIS 5e, 5d, 5c, and 5a. A fourth conifer species, occurring in sediments of MIS 5e, 5d, 5c, and 5a, is difficult to assign to any extant species. Bract morphology is similar to Picea pungens, which grows near the site today, but scale morphology is unlike P. pungens. These fossils may represent ancestral P. pungens, an extinct variant, or an extinct sister species.

Studies of terrestrial biotic and environmental dynamics of Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 5, also called the Last Interglacial Period, provide insight into the effects of long-term climate change on Pleistocene ecosystems. In North America, however, there are relatively few fossil sites that definitively date to MIS 5. Even fewer contain multiple ecosystem components (vertebrates, invertebrates, plants) that have been studied in detail, and none are located at high elevation. Thus, our view of North American ecosystems during MIS 5 is, at best, an incomplete composite view, and alpine ecosystems are entirely undocumented.

In North America, terrestrial records of biodiversity and climate change that span Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 5 are rare. Where found, they provide insight into how the coupling of the ocean–atmosphere system is manifested in biotic and environmental records and how the biosphere responds to climate change. In 2010–2011, construction at Ziegler Reservoir near Snowmass Village, Colorado (USA) revealed a nearly continuous, lacustrine/wetland sedimentary sequence that preserved evidence of past plant communities between ~140 and 55 ka, including all of MIS 5. At an elevation of 2705 m, the Ziegler Reservoir fossil site also contained thousands of well-preserved bones of late Pleistocene megafauna, including mastodons, mammoths, ground sloths, horses, camels, deer, bison, black bear, coyotes, and bighorn sheep. In addition, the site contained more than 26,000 bones from at least 30 species of small animals including salamanders, otters, muskrats, minks, rabbits, beavers, frogs, lizards, snakes, fish, and birds. The combination of macro- and micro-vertebrates, invertebrates, terrestrial and aquatic plant macrofossils, a detailed pollen record, and a robust, directly dated stratigraphic framework shows that high-elevation ecosystems in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado are climatically sensitive and varied dramatically throughout MIS 5.

Approximately half of the variation in wellbeing measures overlaps with variation in personality traits. Studies of non-human primate pedigrees and human twins suggest that this is due to common genetic influences. We tested whether personality polygenic scores for the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) domains and for item response theory (IRT) derived extraversion and neuroticism scores predict variance in wellbeing measures. Polygenic scores were based on published genome-wide association (GWA) results in over 17,000 individuals for the NEO-FFI and in over 63,000 for the IRT extraversion and neuroticism traits. The NEO-FFI polygenic scores were used to predict life satisfaction in 7 cohorts, positive affect in 12 cohorts, and general wellbeing in 1 cohort (maximal N = 46,508). Meta-analysis of these results showed no significant association between NEO-FFI personality polygenic scores and the wellbeing measures. IRT extraversion and neuroticism polygenic scores were used to predict life satisfaction and positive affect in almost 37,000 individuals from UK Biobank. Significant positive associations (effect sizes <0.05%) were observed between the extraversion polygenic score and wellbeing measures, and a negative association was observed between the polygenic neuroticism score and life satisfaction. Furthermore, using GWA data, genetic correlations of -0.49 and -0.55 were estimated between neuroticism with life satisfaction and positive affect, respectively. The moderate genetic correlation between neuroticism and wellbeing is in line with twin research showing that genetic influences on wellbeing are also shared with other independent personality domains.

Ageing is associated with weight loss and subsequently poor health outcomes. The present study assessed agreement between two field methods, bioelectrical impedance spectroscopy (BIS) and corrected arm muscle area (CAMA) for assessment of body composition against dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), the reference technique. Agreement between two predictive equations estimating skeletal muscle mass (SMM) from BIS against SMM from DXA was also determined. Assessments occurred at baseline < 14 d post-surgery (n 79), and at 6 months (6M; n 75) and 12 months (12M; n 63) in community-living older adults after surgical treatment for hip fracture. The 95 % limits of agreement (LOA) between BIS and DXA, CAMA and DXA and the equations and DXA were assessed using Bland–Altman analyses. Mean bias and LOA for fat-free mass (FFM) between BIS and DXA were: baseline, 0·7 ( − 10·9, 12·4) kg; 6M, − 0·5 ( − 20·7, 19·8) kg; 12M, 0·1 ( − 8·7, 8·9) kg and for SMM between CAMA and DXA were: baseline, 0·3 ( − 11·7, 12·3) kg; 6M, 1·3 ( − 4·5, 7·1) kg; 12M, 0·9 ( − 5·4, 7·2) kg. Equivalent data for predictive equations against DXA were: equation 1: baseline, 15·1 ( − 9·5, 20·6) kg; 6M, 17·1 ( − 12·0, 22·2) kg; 12M, 17·5 ( − 13·0, 22·0) kg; equation 2: baseline, 12·6 ( − 7·3, 19·9) kg; 6M, 14·4 ( − 9·7, 19·1) kg; 12M, 14·8 ( − 10·7, 18·9) kg. Proportional bias (BIS: β = − 0·337, P< 0·001; CAMA: β = − 0·294, P< 0·001) was present at baseline but not at 6M or 12M. Clinicians should be cautious in using these field methods to predict FFM and SMM, particularly in the acute care setting. New predictive equations would be beneficial.

The material characterization toolbox has recently experienced a number of parallel revolutionary advances, foreshadowing a time in the near future when material scientists can quantify material structure evolution across spatial and temporal space simultaneously. This will provide insight to reaction dynamics in four-dimensions, spanning multiple orders of magnitude in both temporal and spatial space. This study presents the authors’ viewpoint on the material characterization field, reviewing its recent past, evaluating its present capabilities, and proposing directions for its future development. Electron microscopy; atom probe tomography; x-ray, neutron and electron tomography; serial sectioning tomography; and diffraction-based analysis methods are reviewed, and opportunities for their future development are highlighted. Advances in surface probe microscopy have been reviewed recently and, therefore, are not included [D.A. Bonnell et al.: Rev. Modern Phys. in Review]. In this study particular attention is paid to studies that have pioneered the synergetic use of multiple techniques to provide complementary views of a single structure or process; several of these studies represent the state-of-the-art in characterization and suggest a trajectory for the continued development of the field. Based on this review, a set of grand challenges for characterization science is identified, including suggestions for instrumentation advances, scientific problems in microstructure analysis, and complex structure evolution problems involving material damage. The future of microstructural characterization is proposed to be one not only where individual techniques are pushed to their limits, but where the community devises strategies of technique synergy to address complex multiscale problems in materials science and engineering.