From: Peter L Borst <[log in to unmask]>

>Inbreeding may be a tool in the hands of people, but nature doesn't use tools. In evolution, things usually happen as a net result, not by the use of tools or strategies, etc.

You are more than welcome to argue semantics if you like...but I'm hardly the first to illustrate natural process by animating them.  The well used term "Mother Nature" is probably the most common example, but there are countless others (from the Vatican calling evolution "God's tool for creation" to studies published in peer reviewed scientific journals such as:
"viruses, in an interplay with RNA interference and as vehicles for intergenic and interspecies gene transfer, may work as agents for intracellular gene modulation, for steering of individual morphogenesis and as a driving force of evolution in the toolbox of nature." from The RNA interference-virus interplay: tools of nature for gene modulation, morphogenesis, evolution and a possible mean for aflatoxin control. Published in Applied Microbiology Biotechnology).

More to the point, you don't consider things like sexual reproduction or other behaviors a tool or strategy?

"...tropical bees do not possess the hoarding instinct to the same degree as cold climate bees, because they don't need to. Their strategy is much more to live day to day and migrate from flow to flow." (quoted from another bee forum...posted by Peterloringborst).  So, tropical bees do use "strategies"...clearly such strategies are both the result and and cause of evolutionary pressures.

>What humans have achieved through breeding stands separate from what occurs in nature as a result of natural selection.

I really depends on how you look at it.  In a broad sense, the breeding practices used by humans are not much more than imposing a set of conditions on a population ("if you [rose bush] don't produce pink flowers, you will not be 'fit' to reproduce").  Certainly we have produced lines of bees (and other organisms) that would never happen in "nature".

>Natural selection has no goal, such as better bees.

"Survival (and reproduction) of the fittest" is the result, even if you don't want to ascribe this as a "goal".

>Out of this battle, certain survival strategies develop, such as honey hoarding in the case of European bees, absconding in the case of African bees, migrating in the case of bees in India.

Yes, they do.  But if hoarding and absconding are "strategies", how are sexual reproduction (and all the mating rituals and requirements that are part and parcel of sexual reproduction) and "survival of the fittest" not strategies?

>Another example of natural selection producing a solution to a problem is the breeding system of honey bees.

...so natural selection "produces a solution" but is not a "strategy" or "tool"?  Such a system (although involving many elements of chance) is far from "random".

>So the idea of bringing queens from 50 or more sources into a breeding program would seem far more natural than to arbitrarily select a few queens based on a superficial evaluation of "desirable features."

...as I said in my previous post, figuring out what the "desirable features" are is the hard part....of course, one can look at the "strategies" nature uses....it is based first (and foremost) upon survival (hardly a superficial evaluation), with anything else that gives a competitive advantage a close second.

>If we have learned anything from breeding plants and animals, is that it is a mistake to focus too hard on too few traits. 

Agreed 100%

>So you say, breed for hygienic behavior, and to heck with other qualities such as color, honey production, temperament, etc. How do we know if hygienic behavior is the most valuable trait in survivability?

...I _never_ said to breed for hygienic behavior!
http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=ind1012&L=BEE-L&P=R16280&1=BEE-L&9=A&I=-3&J=on&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches&z=4


>Maybe the most valuable thing is to avoid breeding strategies of any sort. Or to copy nature, and try to get as varied a mix as possible, at least in the case of bees.

The key phrase in the above is "as possible".  Nature doesn't constantly move honeybee genetics thousands of miles in a day on a routine basis. Nature also culls ruthlessly...severely decreasing how "varied" a mix is available for breeding.  Bottlenecks are _just_ as important as diversity.

>For example, how does nature produce new colonies? Charlie Mraz mimicked nature's way when he made divides.

To some extent he did mimic nature...but bees don't produce new colonies by moving combs with stores, brood, etc into a new cavity.  I believe that "emergency queens" are not all that common in nature.

>Finally (finally!) it may be that a colony, when it divides to form a new colony, passes epigenetic characteristics to its offspring. These could be environmentally switched on alleles, acquired behavioral traits, or microbial complexes developed in response to specific pressures on the colony which enabled that particular colony to prosper where others did not.

Yes.  We are very excited that Kersten Ebbersten is going to be speaking about epigenetics in honeybees at our conference this summer!

deknow

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