Blair Sampson writes:
>
>     Can anyone out there clearify what is meant by an "africanized
> honey bee".
 
{edited}
 
> Since aggressiveness is a highly adaptive trait at least for bees
> under duress, the proliferation of "africanized" genes poses a real
> danger to domestic honey bee populations.
 
{edited}
 
> To put it more succinctly, "African bee"= physical
> migration; "Africanized bee" = genetic migration. The latter being of
> greater concern to northern apiculturalists.
 
 
Given that genomes undergo recombination, and the agressiveness is
affected by genetic factors, and that agressiveness may be adaptive in
feral colonies,   What are the chances that AHB morphology and
mitotypes etc may stop advancing in the southern U.S., but that the
genes for colony defensiveness will carry on north? Would there be any
point in identifying AHB genomes when they recombine every generation?
Maybe just an agressiveness assay (or an assay of the traits of concern)
would do the trick? Can a population geneticist throw some light on this
topic e.g. from Argentinian data?
 
 Martin H. Villet
 
 Department of Zoology and Entomology   Telephone: 27 [0]461 318-527
 Rhodes University
 Grahamstown 6140 RSA                  Internet: [log in to unmask]