> In fact a population of bees could test 0% Africanized by maternal descent and still be nearly 100% Africanized by nuclear DNA.

First, I don't disagree with this, as you know. However, I would be reluctant to challenge Dr. Rangel on her understanding of the genetic components of Africanization. Perhaps this brief exposition could advance the discussion:

Two possible factors have been suggested for their spread: competitive displacement of other
honeybees by the more aggressive Africanised strain, or the mating advantage of Africanised
drones compared to those of normally used commercial strains. If the mating advantage of
Africanised drones was important, then the advancing Africanised bee populations would
be dissociated from the mitochondria present at the time of introduction because the males
do not pass on mtDNA. In fact, Africanised bees from various Mexican and Venezuelan
localities have mtDNA related to the progenitor Apis mellifera scutellata, and not to the
subspecies used commercially (Hall and Muralidharan 1989; Smith et al. 1989), indicating
that competitive displacement is probably much more important than reproductive competition
in the spread of the Africanised bees.

Crozier, R. H. (1990). From population genetics to phylogeny: uses and limits of mitochondrial DNA. Australian systematic botany, 3(1), 111-124.

see also
Hall, H. G., and Muralidharan, K. (1989). Evidence from mitochondria1 DNA that African honey bees spread as continuous maternal lineages. Nature 339, 211-13.

🐝

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html